Two Tribes Gone To War
by Rap541
Summary: Sequel to Six and Two
1. Breaking point

Two Tribes Gone To War

Getting out of town was harder than it sounded. Getting off the Colonial One was harder than it looked too. Once he had been handed his id card, with a warning from the Eight to have it with him at all times, he had been told to leave. Fortunately there were a lot of people milling about in a shell shocked way, and he was able make his way down to his quarters unmolested. Of course he felt like everyone was staring. He was different, fundamentally different. He wouldn't have been surprised to have looked in a mirror and seen his eyes glowing red.

But no one bothered him. One of the male Cylons stared at him, and he almost cringed away. The Cylon merely chuckled, but the reaction convinced Gaeta that Six was telling the truth on at least one point. He would be found out eventually if he stayed, if only because he didn't think he'd ever find a way to be comfortable around them. Or around anyone else. The exhilaration of just moments earlier faded away. He was in a trap, a giant trap closing around him. Worse, there was nowhere to run. He could pretend to be human but he had a feeling that he was never going to be comfortable in his own skin again.

His room hadn't been touched. Judging by the state of disarray that the whole ship was in, he wasn't surprised. Somewhere in the distance, he was certain he could hear people screaming. He tried to shut his ears to it, but his hearing was just so damnably **better**…

I'll just go, he decided. There were caves to the west. He ignored how quickly and easily he seemed to recall the surveys. The plant life was basically edible, there were wild animals that could be eaten. There were also some farms in that area. He could make a camp of some sort, maybe spend some time alone.

It had been a very bad day. He deserved some time alone.

Packing was easy. He still had his military gear. No one seemed to be confiscating guns yet but he was careful to load them at the bottom of the rucksack he'd been issued when he had been assigned as the military advisor. At the time, he'd been angry that he had to cart down camping gear and ammunition but it was going to come in handy. He'd always had access to food, so the emergency rations had never been used. He threw those in the pack as well. Once the gear was in, there was precious little room for anything else. Clothes, he decided. It was cold on New Caprica. And a civilian duffle bag would make the military rucksack less noticeable.

He wondered if it was odd that he could fit everything he owned into two bags. Of course there were things he was leaving. His books, pictures of his friends… he hesitated and then shoved the books into the duffle bag, and then the pictures and the other few keepsakes. If it got heavy, he could dump it. Or trade it. Even the contents of the rucksack weren't necessary.

He'd heard that Cylons didn't need to eat. They didn't even feel pain if they chose. He wondered when that was going to kick in. He hoped it was soon.

"Felix!" Gaeta jumped and then inwardly groaned. It was President Gauis Baltar, absolutely the last person he wanted to see. Granted, the revelation that he was a Cylon had trumped the fact that humanity had just been surrendered to the Cylons. Still, he could barely deal with Gauis Baltar when things weren't completely awful. Baltar had become as much of a drunk as Col. Tigh had been. It had been getting much worse, really, and the only reason he hadn't quit was because he was basically left running the show and he could admit to enjoying the fascinating problems that building a new society posed. Making sure that Baltar didn't drown in his own vomit was a small price to pay for interesting work and a position of respect.

Which was all meaningless now.

"Dr. Baltar," he said, using a tone that wasn't too harsh. " I have been fired. You've surrendered. I don't think that the Cylons are going to allow me to stay." Not that he wanted to, but that was somewhat irrelevant. Baltar could talk pretty fast when he wanted but Gaeta was pretty certain it wasn't going to make a difference.

" I could talk to them," Baltar said after a moment, " They said that I could keep key staff, that the government structure would stay basically the same with… some new rules to implement. I don't know why they're so adamant about you, but I'm certain I can get them to come around." He looked at the rucksack and duffle bag. " Are you… leaving?"

" I can't stay." For more reasons than he wanted to get into. Even though he sensed, deep down, that Baltar was as horrified as he was at the turn of events, it was beyond him to feel sympathy. Not any more. Baltar **knew** Six. That meant something, and it wasn't a good thing. " They won't change their mind. They…" he thought quickly for a plausible lie, " They don't want military veterans in the government. They'll never trust me. Don't worry… they'll find you a new errand boy."

It was surprisingly nice to see Baltar visibly cringe. The older man paled and looked down at his feet. " I just said that… so they wouldn't kill you."

The problem was, that while it was just as thoughtless and cruel of a remark that Baltar could make, it was also possibly true. Which made his fantasy of making Baltar beg forgiveness just one added cruelty to an already horrible day. He wasn't going to apologize, that was for sure, but did he want to start his day as a Cylon by being a total bastard to someone he had once respected? " I know… but it's not going to make a difference. I've been reassigned… to the education program." As if he was going to stick around long enough to see what that would mean. He suspected not very much at all. There weren't very many truly educated people in the colony. The best way to subjugate was to restrict education. In a generation, if humanity survived that long, they would be a race of serfs. Which made his assignment even more suspicious. He knew enough top level math to be dangerous. He wasn't a fool, it would be a rare individual that would ever come close to his ability, but it was a surprisingly foolish move to send him to the school system.

But that was a thought for another time.

Baltar looked suddenly relieved. " Good, good… I was worried they had decided to send you off to the construction battalions."

That was ominous. He suddenly wondered just how much Baltar really understood about how things were going to go. As a Cylon, he knew that he would be fine in a construction crew. He could feel the difference in himself. However, he wasn't a fool. Visually, he was no Lee Adama, even if Lee had let himself go big time. And there was a pretty good chance that Lee was dead, so having spiteful thoughts about how the man had run to fat in the job that Gaeta had wanted just seemed mean.

But… construction battalions were not going to go over well with the unions. Neither were forced assignments or so many other things that seemed to be happening. Baltar had no idea how bad things were going to get. The Cylons seemed to want to subjugate the human race. That meant, as near as he could tell, that things would be survivable if people did what they were told. Enough of the people were already emotionally broken from the destruction of the twelve colonies that there wasn't going to be a huge fight. He knew that just from reading the reports from Dr. Cottle. Things had been looking up as the colony had stabilized but he somehow suspected that marching troops of Cylon Centurions were not going to make things better. And some people were going to fight from the start. He was certain that Tyrol for example wasn't going to let the union be ruled.

And of course, it was unlikely that Galen Tyrol was going to get much say on the labor policies. " Dr. Baltar… Gauis… I think it would be very unwise of you to push this." If only because he had no idea just how deeply Baltar was in their pockets. They might trust Baltar enough to tell him the truth. Or they might find it amusing to keep Gaeta on as Baltar's aide… one great big joke on the human president.

Baltar took a step closer. " They don't plan to kill us but I suspect things won't be very pleasant. Number Six assures me that people will just need to… get used to the new rules… and it won't be so unpleasant as time goes on." He put his hand on Gaeta's shoulder. "I'm going to need friends around me, to get through these dark times, Felix."

It was perfect. Almost masterly. So perfect, Gaeta was almost certain that if he had received just one massive shock to the system and not two, he might have bought it. Now though, all he could feel was white hot rage. Baltar wanted him to stay for no other reason than that he would be a convenient tool for Gauis Baltar. Convenient until a scapegoat was needed and then President Gauis Baltar would throw his tool down as a sacrifice.

He had been a complete fool. Oh, he had realized long before that day that Baltar had next to no real affection or friendship with anyone, but knowing that he had believed the snake masquerading as a person standing before him had cared about anything other than himself…. Something inside Gaeta snapped.

" Are you insane? Or just too drunk to realize that we are all completely frakked? Do you even care that we've been conquered? It's all over, and you are just their puppet!" He grabbed Baltar and forced him to the porthole window, where they could both see Cylon Centurions marching down the thoroughfare. " That is because of you! You let this happen… and how in the name of the gods did she know your name?"

Because Gaeta understood how she knew his name. He was one of them and obviously records were kept. But Number Six had given Baltar a look, an intimate look, and he knew Baltar well enough to know that the man had recognized the woman. " What did you do?"

For a second, Baltar blanched and he knew without question that Baltar had done something more than just bring about the current downfall. But as quickly as the moment had come, it passed. Baltar pushed him away and managed to look as cold and nasty as he could.

" I think," he said haughtily as he brushed off his suit, " that perhaps it's best if you do leave, Mr. Gaeta." He spun on his heels and left.

Gaeta let out the breath he had been holding, and unclenched his fists. He had been seconds from just pummeling the man to death. That was new, although he wasn't entirely certain he could pin that on his newfound Cylon nature. Still, his outburst guaranteed one thing. He was not going to be welcome around the Colonial One.

He grabbed his gear. It was time to head for the hills and find a rock to hide under.


	2. The town doctor

It was, Jack Cottle thought tiredly, a good thing to be so old. He was sixty six years old, and he didn't kid himself about how he was keeping himself in tip top shape over the last few years. He had a few years left, and when he had seen the Cylon fighters, well….it wouldn't be long for him. He wasn't sad about that. It was the others he worried about.

There were several trained medical assistants now and next to no medical supplies. The pronouncements from the Cylons on loudspeakers were surprisingly pleasant… No one would be harmed…. Curfew was at sunset. He had almost laughed at that particular revelation. The town, such as it was in all its unnamed glory, was rarely hopping with activity after sundown. That's what happened when "town" was the name assigned to one giant campground with no official bars. The unofficial bars were full, of course. He had other plans however.

He knew, almost instinctively, that people were planning to run. He certainly was, although he had grave misgivings. The problem was that he had certain responsibilities. Certain people and things had to be seen to before he made his own escape. In particular, he intended to make sure that Laura Roslin understood just how much danger she was in.

And Maya of course. Maya and the child. The **special** child. He suspected that it would be very wise if the child… Isis… was not examined closely by any Cylon. That was why he was walking along the main thoroughfare instead of tending to patients at the clinic that masqueraded as a hospital. His doctor's bag was filled with medical supplies and he had packed a change of clothes in a knapsack. His evening would be spent in an attempt to convince one of the most stubborn women he knew to run. He wasn't thrilled about his prospects.

The school tent was dark, which didn't surprise him. It was the end of the work week to begin with and somehow he knew that Roslin had sent the children home to their families. Her quarters were connected to the school, an ungainly arrangement that was to change once the permanent school was built, something he doubted that would happen now.

With the sun setting though, he wasn't going to waste time knocking. He could already hear the stomp of Centurions patrolling, but the various pronouncements assured the huddled masses that those who took shelter in their tent homes that they would be unmolested for the night. Most of them would follow orders. He didn't kid himself about that. The resistance would be small and little more than an annoyance to the Cylons. It would be mostly the ex-military types who ran. The average citizen of New Caprica was already tired and frightened. It had only been the last few months that things had been looking up. The whole city site was been nothing but heaps of mud as building the infrastructure took place. It had been hard, but as the infrastructure went in, people had been growing more and more happy. It was one of the few good ideas that Baltar had, although Cottle had a pretty good idea that most of the more mundane and yet important decisions on civilization planning had been handed off to his assistants. To Baltar, being president was one long party. It had been Felix Gaeta of all people who had insisted on not only putting in water and sewage facilities first, but building everything big enough to accommodate a much larger population and communication and electrical installations besides.

The kid wasn't afraid to think big, Cottle had thought at the council meeting where the plan had first been proposed, and he had voted for it, despite how it meant that people would be living in ship hulls and tents for that much longer. Water was important, and good sanitation meant healthier people in the long run. And looking around the tent city, seeing more and more water taps and manhole covers appearing, people had been getting hopeful.

Which made the sight of Felix Gaeta kicking at one of the manhole covers in a distracted fashion even more depressing and pathetic. The poor kid, Cottle thought sadly, things were just not working out for him. He had felt sorry for the younger man before. Bill Adama's ship wasn't the place for a technically minded young officer, and while Cottle didn't like the election results, particularly now that there were Cylons marching about within sight, he didn't know why Adama had expected a different result. But then, Bill often wasn't as good of a judge of people as he thought. Not everyone put love of the commander above love of the law.

" You two! Stop!" Cottle turned to see a small man, followed by two Centurions. He recognized the man. Doral. Not really Doral of course, the first had been left on Ragnar Station, and the second he had only seen pictures of.

And he had done the autopsy on the chunks left behind the suicide explosion.

Doral looked him over pointedly. " The town doctor… and you." He eyed Gaeta, who blanched visibly. " What are **you** doing here?"

" I…" Cottle hadn't thought it was possible for someone of Gaeta's coloring to actually turn pale white. It was obvious that he was shaking as well. It surprised Cottle. He didn't consider Gaeta on the same level of bravery as someone like Kara Thrace or her idiot husband, he thought too much about the consequences, but he seemed more frightened than what the situation warranted.

And the Cylon was clearly a bit puzzled as well. Puzzled and then suddenly amused. " You're the president's assistant aren't you?"

" No… No, I was fired. And reassigned." As Gaeta fumbled through his jacket for something, Cottle considered the situation. Gaeta was wearing a military rucksack, and like most of the military people, had been sent down planetside with spare gear. It was likely that he was carrying everything he owned. And he had been nosing around the manhole covers… Inwardly Cottle smiled, although he was very careful to not let his face betray his thoughts. It wasn't ideal, not for several reasons, but it was better than what he had planned.

The only problem was whether Gaeta was sensible enough to see reason.

" I have an ID," Gaeta said at last as he held it out to the Cylon. His hands shook as he handed it over, and he flinched visibly when the Cylon touched his hand. Someone has had a very bad scare, Cottle realized with concern. A sudden purge of the president's bloated staff was probably a good thing, although it was quite the surprise that Gaeta had been let go. He personally wouldn't have wanted to been around for the Cylons arrival at the president's office and he was starting to wonder just what had led to Gaeta being turned out.

Because something was clearly wrong.

The Cylon chuckled at the id and handed it back. " Reassigned to education… that's quite amusing." He then seemed to get more serious. " Curfew is at sundown and that's right now. Where do you two need to be? Because I will find a place for you if necessary."

That certainly sounded unpleasant. Cottle grabbed Gaeta by the arm. " We're spending the night with our friend Maya and her baby. You can imagine how a young woman might be feeling a little… nervous at the turn of events. She lives right there." He pointed to the school tent.

It killed him to be so polite, especially considering just how badly he wanted to punch the smirking little bastard in the face. After a long moment the Cylon shrugged. " I'll send someone by later to make sure everyone is fine. There's nothing to worry about, you understand. As long as people follow the rules, no one will be harmed."

" Of course," Cottle said, smiling slightly. He pulled Gaeta towards the school tent. The school wasn't wired for electric lights since the kids were only there during the day but Laura kept flashlight by her desk, he knew that. He flicked the light on and shined it in Gaeta's face. Shock, he decided as he steered the younger man to one of the chairs and pulled the release straps on the rucksack which fell to the floor with a thump. " Sit down," he said, " and put your head between your legs and breath. Don't faint… Did someone hit you?"

"No…" was the muffled reply. Cottle was inclined to believe him. A Cylon would have caused more visible pain and Gaeta seemed to be walking and moving just fine. After a moment Gaeta sat back up. " I was fine… I was going to get out of town… but I felt… like I was going to be sick…" He shivered.

"What happened?" Cottle couldn't help it, he was curious and if anyone was going to know, it was Gaeta.

" Baltar surrendered. The fleet jumped away… they said there were multiple base stars. I can't blame them…" Gaeta shifted position. He blinked. " I was… I was fired. One of them… said I had to leave. Dr. Baltar and I had an argument… I think he sold us out. I think he knew one of the Cylons… before."

Which all had the ring of a lot of unpleasant truth. Cottle suspected that something was being left out, but it wasn't the right time. Gaeta would bounce back quickly, he could already see the signs of recovery, slower breathing and color returning. The important thing was that getting Laura Roslin and the child out of the city just got much less suicidal.

If he could convince Laura.


	3. The school teacher

She hadn't felt so lousy in a long time. Since that miserable day on the Colonial One when she found out that she was literally the last member of the government still standing. She had never thought that she would ever have to face a blacker day. Even when she had been dying, lying on a hospital, that had not been able to top the sheer mindnumbing horror of that terrible day.

Laura Roslin mentally prayed to the gods. Please don't try to top this, she asked silently as she looked out through the sheet of clear plastic that passed for a window in her tent, because the only way this gets worse is if I see a Cylon Centurion slam a baby into a brick wall. As she looked out, two Centurions stomped by, followed by a human appearing Cyon. Doral, she thought darkly. She wondered idly if he was still a smarmy bastard.

Probably.

Laura ran her hand through her hair worriedly as she watched Maya put the baby down in the basinet. She was at a loss as to what to do. Her instinct was to run, but that was unrealistic. The wilderness of New Caprica was dangerous. It was like living in a cold rainforest, and people who had gone camping had been killed due to the weather and wild animals. Of course, the people had died had been stupid and unprepared, but it wasn't as though she was loaded down with survival supplies in the tents that passed for her quarters. Like most of the civilian population, she had next to nothing. A few changes of clothes was all, and the only ones that weren't completely inappropriate for the weather were the ones she was wearing, and some of Billy's clothes that she had kept. She had never been one for outdoor living anyway.

The people would need someone to be there, to lead. Baltar wasn't competent, that much had been obvious for a while. Did she want to help a man that had trashed everything she had held dear? No, she didn't, but at the same time, she couldn't abandon the people. There had been no sign of battle in the skies. That meant that Bill and his few remaining people might have gotten away. They might come back. It would be good if there were a few people alive when they did.

At the very least, the children still needed a teacher. If she ran, there would be no one for them. The sound of a thump like noise in the school annex reached her ears. The baby began to fuss, and Maya looked up as well. Maya and the baby were two separate reasons that she couldn't run as well. Maya was a sweet young woman, a good teaching assistant with the younger children, and as dumb as a box of rocks. She honestly didn't know how Maya had gotten through each day before she had sought the woman out. Maya would need to be hand held on a run to the hills. The baby, Isis, was a more serious problem. Regardless of the baby's heritage, which was something that still frightened her, Isis was a baby. Laura knew that she might, just might, be able to run into the woods and elude capture. It was even possible that she could drag Maya with her, although she didn't give good odds on it being successful. But with a baby in tow? It was impossible. Better to not even consider it.

Besides, there were other people who would stay. The old, the weak, those already too tired to fight… That was the vast majority of the population. Someone would need to take things in hand and she had no doubt that eventually she would be the one that they turned to. Baltar was unlikely to rise out of his rumored bed of whores unless the Cylons forced him out, and she knew in her heart that he was an accomplice. Baltar would be sitting very pretty once the dust settled and uncaring of how the people around him suffered. That left no one because she knew without even thinking about it that Zarek would run or fall into line with their new Cylon overlords. Zarek was a snake like that, always looking for the best opportunity. There was no one else to step up, not with any real authority. Most of the Galactica's crew had fallen into the role of good neighbor and fellow colonist. Even people like Kara Thrace had seemingly fallen into the role of mediocrity when given the chance, although she was quite positive that Thrace, Tyrol, and a few others were plotting escape, if they hadn't already made a run for the hills. She knew where they lived. If she wanted to get out, they would cheerfully take her with them, and Maya, and the baby, and they would never say a word about feeling slowed down by having to drag the old woman with them.

She wasn't going to make them feel obligated. Running was for the young and unencumbered. No it was her duty, her **obligation** to stay and make the best of things. Even though her every instinct was screaming to run.

"I think someone's in the school room," Maya said after a long moment.

Roslin nodded. Probably someone had run inside, frightened by the Cylons and the loudly announced curfew. It would be a very brave soul who tried the patience of the Cylons at night, on the first night. She walked over to the tent flap that led to the school room but stopped as the flap moved and revealed the grim form of Dr. Jack Cottle.

" Jack, it's good to see you." It was, too. Over the last two years, Jack Cottle had been her doctor, her counselor, and her friend. It was a surprise that he had forsaken the makeshift hospital to spend the evening with her and Maya, but deep down she wasn't surprised. Cottle, in his gruff way, was an old fashioned gentleman. He was watching out for the unattached women in his circle of acquaintances. If she had even hinted that she wanted more, she suspected that she could easily have it, but she had always maintained a certain distance. It was better for everyone that way.

Cottle nodded. " I figured you'd be stupid enough to stick around, Laura. We need to have a really long talk about how dumb you are."

" With charm like that, it's hard to believe that there was never a Mrs. Cottle." She had long become used to Cottle's ways. The best way to deal with him was to lay on the sarcasm just as hard as he did.

" Marriage is for idiots," Cottle said easily. He nodded at Maya. Then he looked back at her. " We do need to talk, but there's another problem. I ran into an acquaintance a few minutes ago. He's in the school room."

" It's not the night to hold people accountable for courtesy," she said after a long moment. Cottle was about to brace her about something, she could see that, and he was hesitant. That was rare for a man like Cottle who usually threw bad news out as quickly as possible. Gods, don't let it be Gauis Baltar out there, Roslin prayed, because I will not be gracious or pleasant. In fact she was certain that she would leap on the greasy bastard and kill him. " Who is it?"

" Felix Gaeta." He waited for a long moment. "He's in shock, physical shock. He also managed to get himself summarily fired and kicked out of his quarters, so maybe you can hold off rubbing his face in his honesty for a few hours."

It wasn't Baltar. She let out the breath she was holding. Felix Gaeta wasn't one of her favorite people either, not since she had learned from Bill Adama just who had foiled Tori's plans for the election, but he wasn't loathsome and possibly evil. Just incredibly stiff and naïve about politics. " I won't throw him out if that's what you mean."

" That's exactly what I mean." Cottle said. " But let me make something very clear. You need to be nice about this. You and I are going to have a long talk about how likely it is that we're going to survive."

" Jack, we're all frakked." She meant that. Whatever number of people escaped into the wilderness, there would not be enough to make a real difference. The smartest move for humanity was if Adama consolidated the crews of the Galactica and Pegasus and ran as far and fast as he could.

Unfortunately, that wasn't Bill Adama's way of thinking. He would gamely get his people together and make a suicidal attempt to rescue the citizens of New Caprica. Even if it meant killing everyone left alive.

" I've got a plan." Cottle said after a moment. He lowered his voice, and cast a look at Maya. " The baby can't be found, can't be raised in a Cylon ruled society. You know that."

She did. The problem was getting out without getting caught with the baby. There was certainly a perimeter being established around the town. She had already considered the most unpleasant option. Maya would be devastated but she would never realize that the baby died of anything other than mysterious crib death. That was a last resort however. The baby was a gambling chip, possibly their only gambling chip. She wasn't entirely certain what Cottle had planned, but it was likely better than what she had come up with so far. It was times like this that made her miss Billy Keikeya. He would have already laid out multiple plans. She raised her voice, "Bring him in. Maya, set two extra places. Fortunately, there's plenty of soup."

It didn't take a medical degree to pick up that Felix Gaeta was in a state of shock. That did make it easier to not mention the election, although she sorely wanted to. The young man seemed to sense her underlying anger and didn't say a word as the doctor pulled him into the smaller living quarters that were attached to the school tent.

"Well, why don't we all sit down at the table? Maya, I think we all could use some tea." What she could really use was a drink, but there was little alcohol available and she had none herself. Maya quickly set out mugs. It's just like a staff meeting, Laura thought suddenly, it's just the faces that have changed.

She took a seat and was not surprised to see everyone immediately join her. " So what do we know so far? Maya and I haven't heard anything, we just saw the flyover… and the centurions." She eyed Gaeta. She understood Cottle's point but she was also looking at her only source of news. " You must have been right in the middle of things."

Gaeta looked down at his mug. She could see his fingers twitch as they clenched around the warm mug. " Dr. Baltar surrendered. I was fired. One of them…." He visibly shuddered.

""Keep going," Cottle said after a moment. It was a gentle prod, Roslin realized.

" I was going to leave. They're setting up guards but the water system is underground and Baltar never really paid much attention to it but the sewage lines were designed to open up far out of town."

" That's an interesting plan," Roslin said after a moment. She threw Cottle a dark look, suddenly understanding just what he had planned. " Jack, are you about to suggest what I think you're suggesting?"

" Mr. Gaeta designed the whole system. We could get out relatively safely." Cottle said easily. " You wouldn't mind a few companions, would you, son?"

Roslin glanced back at Gaeta. It suddenly struck her that Cottle's request was not a welcome one to Gaeta, although he masked it well. " That's a very risky plan, Doctor," he said after a long moment. He was clearly choosing his words carefully. " I was planning on taking a fairly difficult route."

"I'm old, not dead," Cottle replied.

Gaeta gestured to the bassinet in the corner. " I assume you weren't planning to leave the baby you've got there. I'm talking about walking a few miles underground through raw sewage that might be waist high in some places. Once you're out…. It's going to be very rough."

" You're proposing we join the resistance," Roslin said to Cottle. " That may not be an option. I think Mr. Gaeta is being overly optimistic about our chances. Besides, the people will need leadership."

Cottle smiled slightly. " Maya, I don't think you've met Felix here, have you?" Maya, to her credit, managed to smile shyly. Not that it was likely to go anywhere, Roslin thought. She had never done more than be mildly acquainted with Gaeta but he had never been rumored to be a ladies man. And Maya's preferences ran the other way. Cottle turned his attention back to her. " A word? In private?"

She rose and so did he, and they walked into the school tent together. There was a rucksack in the middle of the floor, and the desks had been moved around. She knew from experience that it wasn't private, but if they kept their voices down, neither Maya or Gaeta would hear them.

" Are you insane, Jack?" she asked softly. " Are you seriously suggesting that we follow Gauis Baltar's military advisor on some jaunt through the sewer system with Maya and Isis? I'm not even sure we can trust him. He doesn't want to take us with him."

"Of course he doesn't. But he will, and we need to take advantage of that." Cottle pulled out a cigarette and lit it. She was surprised, she had thought that he had finally run out months ago. He inhaled deeply and then blew out the smoke. " With any luck, most of the military people planet side are running. The pilots were already gone, when I looked in on a few. You are going to be a target if you stay. So will I, but for different reasons. They'll want you to take part in their little society that they're going to set up here. Use you, in other words. As a symbol most likely. You can't allow that to happen. The people need to know that you didn't roll over and lie down with the enemy." He took another drag. " And then there's the baby to think about."

" I'm not sure a one year old baby can survive what you're proposing," she countered.

" I doubt it as well. Hell, I doubt **I'll** survive what I'm proposing." Cottle puffed lovingly on the cigarette. " The Cylons can't be allowed access to Isis. She could be used as a weapon, or a rallying point. If keeping her from the Cylons means killing her, I would do it right now. And you know I don't say that easily." She nodded. Underneath his gruffness, Jack Cottle was an essentially gentle and caring man.

" But more importantly, we can't take the chance that they won't use you. You need to be out of here, Laura." Cottle said.

He meant it, and she saw his logic. " I don't trust Felix Gaeta," she said finally. " He doesn't want us to go with him, I can see it in his eyes and that worries the hell out of me. As does the fact that he's been working under President Baltar for a year."

" I know him better than you," Cottle said after a long moment. " He's a good man. If he's hesitant, it's because he understands exactly why I want him with us."

" And why is that?" Roslin asked.

" I'm an old man, you're a middle aged woman with bad health issues, and Maya is a nice, young, and not exactly bright woman with a baby. He's a young, reasonably fit man. He'll get farther without us." Cottle smiled darkly. " However, Felix's problem has always been an overly well developed sense of duty. He'll help us. Don't be concerned about that."

" I **am** concerned about that," she said after a moment. " He seems a little disconnected."

" Shock," Cottle said easily. " Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You'll always find something unpleasant if you look hard enough. Any escape plan we come up with involves a risk of death but having him with us reduces that risk by a lot. And you can't afford to risk staying."

The problem was that he was right. As dicey as escaping through the sewer system was, it was infinitely more survivable if one of them was the designer of the system. And if Cottle was right, then Gaeta was probably feeling more than a little guilt about the situation. Or at least he should, a cynical voice muttered in her head. She put that thought away, for another time. If she was even considering trusting the man, she would need to hold back on her venom. At least until they were safe. " I suppose Maya and I should start packing."


	4. An unpleasant truth

It was the last thing he wanted, the very last thing. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to be able to be with himself and think about what he was going to do. He didn't want to physically haul himself through the water system, let alone three other people and a baby. Four human beings who had no idea that they were trusting the enemy. It made his skin crawl.

As did the idea of going into the sewer system. He shivered. He did know how to get out, but it was going to be tough. And dirty. It was not a trip that he would wish on his worst enemy. He didn't want to go himself.

There were problems with just sneaking out, not that he hadn't considered it. It certainly wouldn't have been hard. Maya seemed like a nice enough woman, but scattered, and her packing dilemmas were keeping both Cottle and Roslin busy to where he could have quietly walked out. He wanted to do just that. But he couldn't. It was wrong, for starters. He had agreed to take them with him. And he would, at least until they were out of the city. Other people had to be running. He would find them a safe place, or at least a safer place, and then he would continue on with his own plan. That was the right thing to do.

Of course, doing the right thing had never been a particularly successful venture for him. He shook that thought away as he redistributed the contents of his pack. If the events of the last two years had taught him anything, it was that there was never anything to be gained by doing the right thing. Maybe I should start doing the smart thing, he thought as he searched for the guns he had packed.

The smart thing to do would be to tell ex-President Roslin and her obvious disdain to frak off and then leave on his own. He was a Cylon, and worse, he was the stand in for her anger over the situation. Her dark looks directed at him made him very aware of just how much blame she was leveling at him. Plus, she was smart, and so was Cottle, and they might pick up on something being different about him. It was a bad idea helping them. He would be safer on his own. Safer and much less likely to get found out.

The problem was he simply couldn't do it. Once the shock had worn off, Cottle's reasoning had become crystal clear to him. Roslin was in danger. She was a symbol to the people. If she stayed, the psychological impact would be immense to the people. Likewise, if she was one of the first people to leave, it might inspire the people. Plus, he was certain that she would be on Baltar's list of people to turn in for favors.

So would Cottle, now that there were a few people trained. In fact, Gaeta was absolutely certain that Baltar would target Cottle, Roslin, and any number of the ex-crew of the Galactica, himself included, for any number of perceived slights. And he wasn't going to allow that, even if Laura Roslin did hate him. He finally found the guns he had packed and withdrew them. He had two service pistols. He loaded both and held one out to Cottle. " There's no point in my having both."

Cottle shook his head and patted his jacket pocket. " I brought mine along. Give it to one of the women."

Yes, Gaeta thought darkly, give a gun to one of the women. What a delightful plan. Maya, from just a few minutes of shocked conversation, seemed like a more stupid version of Tyrol's deckhand girlfriend, and Roslin was glaring daggers at him every time their eyes met. Roslin, who tended towards killing Cylons whenever the opportunity arose.

On the other hand, if Roslin shot him, it would be on purpose. With Maya he couldn't be sure. Plus Maya was going to carry the baby in the backpack baby carrier that the two women conveniently had. " Here, Ms. Roslin," he said awkwardly. He held out the gun.

" I don't know anything about guns," she said after a moment. She didn't take the gun.

" You point and pull the trigger." Gods, did she think they were going on a picnic? There was a part of him that wished he was stuck helping Dualla, who was practical and sensible. Then again, not only would Dualla likely not need his help, she would be devastated to discover that he was a Cylon, and would join the line behind Roslin to shoot him. " It's not hard. You should be armed."

" Take the gun, Laura." Cottle said. " If we get separated, you should be armed. We should also split the baby's things between us."

The baby was going to be a problem, Gaeta thought. He didn't know very much about babies, his memories of childhood were of being an only child. And, those memories were suspect anyway. He was a Cylon, it was unlikely that he had ever really been a child. There weren't any gaps in his memory, not that he could find, but he obviously wasn't the only child of Edward and Victoria Gaeta. The only memories he could really count on as true and not Cylon programming were those that he could confirm with people who were still alive.

And the gods knew there weren't many people from his past still alive. " I can take some of the baby things. You should be packing as much food and clothing as you can. Maybe blankets… Do you have any survival gear here?"

"I teach school. Not camping." Roslin took the gun from his hand. " Does this have a safety?" He pointed to the safety on the side. She flicked it off and on with expert ease, which belayed her ignorance. He wasn't surprised. He had assumed that Lee Adama had familiarized her during at least one of his bouts of mutinous misadventure. She looked at him, and smiled coldly. " Any other survival suggestions?"

" Wear good boots. And…" He hesitated. " Are you sure you want to bring the baby?" It was a surprisingly sentimental move for both Cottle, and Roslin. " It's not going to be easy with just adults. I don't think the Cylons would… hurt the baby…." Someone had to say it. Maya obviously wasn't enthralled with the idea at all, and if she stayed behind with the baby, things would be a lot less dangerous.

Cottle and Roslin exchanged looks. Great, Gaeta thought darkly, now both of them are mad at me. He didn't understand why. Their plan was most likely going to end with one dead baby. Roslin finally seemed to acquiesce, and waved Cottle away. She returned to helping Maya, while Cottle took a hold of his arm.

" Lets step into the school room for a moment, son." Cottle said easily. Gaeta went with him, wondering just how much worse it was going to get. Because clearly it was going to get worse. Cottle looked him over, obviously sizing him up. " The baby is special, Felix."

" Special how?" But he suddenly knew, didn't he? The baby was **very** special. It suddenly flashed in his mind just why Roslin, who was hardly a fool, was so dedicated to hauling along a baby that wasn't even hers. And… he had a feeling about the baby, didn't he?" Sharon's baby…. It didn't die, did it?"

Cottle looked surprised that he had guessed it so easily. Be careful, he warned himself, and come up with some sort of cover story. " Helo always said that the baby hadn't looked like it was struggling."

" The baby was switched. Maya had just given birth to a premature girl, and President Roslin made the decision that the baby needed to be raised away from Cylon influence." And he could see that Cottle hadn't much cared for the decision or the plan. He could guess why. It was, on the surface, a monstrous thing to do, to rip a baby from the arms of her parents who loved her, tell the parents that she was dead and hand her off to a foster mother. Helo had certainly been devastated, and while he didn't normally have a lot of sympathy for Helo, he had thought it was unfortunate and cruel that the baby had died.

On the other hand, raising the child as human was much safer. Safer still to get the baby girl away from prying eyes. Prying Cylon eyes. The scheme wasn't so clever that other Cylons wouldn't consider it. Roslin living with a young woman with a baby would seem very odd. And there were other problems, he realized with dawning horror

" The Cylons can't be allowed to know that they can successfully breed with humans," Cottle said sternly. " I know you've read the reports. Right now, they seem to be more concerned with appearing friendly, but if they know it's possible, then this planet will end up as nothing more than a giant breeding farm."

Oh frak why did I have to run into you, Gaeta thought tiredly. Why did you want to trust me? The irony, he knew, was that Cottle thought he was doing the right thing. Cottle was bringing him in on the secret so that he would be more loyal to the cause. The doctor simply didn't know that he had just told the absolute worst person he could have. The secret was only safe as long as he managed to stay alive.

" You all right, son?" Cottle asked after a moment. Gaeta could sense the worry coming off the older man. He already had the impression that Cottle didn't think he was too stable. Which was fair. He didn't feel very stable at all.

" It just makes it imperative that we get out of here. President Baltar has files on the child. They'll be looking for you and Ms. Roslin soon enough, if just to research what went wrong." Gaeta glanced at his watch. " If we leave now, we'll have six hours of darkness to work with. Everyone's reasonably healthy, so the five miles underground shouldn't take all night. But we do need to be away soon, and the more distance we can put between us and them, the better." He hoped that it sounded forceful and competent. And that Cottle didn't notice that his arms were crawling with goose bumps.

Cottle nodded, but he still looked worried. " All right then. Remember, Maya doesn't know. She doesn't need to know." They walked back into the women's quarters, and Gaeta noticed Roslin and Cottle exchanging more looks. He didn't care. He grabbed the remaining things, baby food and clothes and sundries.

" We need to get moving," he said simply. He watched as Roslin helped Maya with the backpack baby carrier. " How are we going to keep the baby from crying?"

"With Mommy's little helper," Cottle said, his eyes twinkling. He pulled a flask out of his jacket pocket. " I put a little of this in her last bottle."

Gaeta grabbed his gear. In theory, he supposed that he should be doing some sort of final check on gear, but alarms seemed to be going off in his head. If they didn't start moving soon, they weren't going to get the chance at all. " Everyone has their stuff?" He waited until everyone nodded. " All right. No flashlights until we're all down into the water main. Don't make a sound. We're just going to step outside, and I will lift the manhole cover. Dr. Cottle goes down first, then Maya, then Ms. Roslin. I'll be last, and I'll pull the cover over. Everyone clear?" He didn't know where the forceful tone was coming from. He felt like he was going to be sick.

It worked though. Everyone followed him out into the dark night. It was luck, or fate that one of the water main manhole covers was right by the school. He pulled up the manhole cover easily, not caring if it was a giveaway. No one seemed to notice as they went down the ladder. He followed them down, carefully drawing the heavy metal circle over the hole. His feet splashed into water as he dropped to the bottom of the pipe.

Gods dammit, he thought as he flicked on his flashlight, I wish I didn't know about the baby. "Let's go."


	5. In the labyrinth

She wondered what Bill Adama would have done in her situation. Scratch that, Laura Roslin thought as she watched Maya carefully maneuver around some jutting pipes, I know exactly what Bill would have done. He would have gathered as many people as he could and made for the hills. The same exact thing she was doing, except that his conscience would be clear.

Hers was not. The people needed a steady hand to turn to and she was leaving them to the not so tender mercies of the Cylons and Dr. Gauis Baltar. Of course, Jack was right, there were too many ways that she could be used, and worse still if the Cylons found the baby, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was abandoning them all to a fate worse than death.

As if wandering about the sewer system being led by a shell shocked man she barely knew and didn't trust was a better fate, she thought to herself. She allowed herself a slight smile. There were many events in her life that she had never planned on, and hiking through a sewer to escape Cylons was one. At least it didn't stink as much as she thought it would. On the other hand she hadn't expected to see things scatter when she flashed her light on the floor. " What was that?"

Gaeta stopped and turned, flashing his light to where she was pointing. She could see that he was annoyed just by the set of his shoulders and his pursed lips. " You have to be quiet," he whispered harshly, " People will hear you… it was probably just a rat."

"A rat?" She felt her skin crawl. Beside her, she heard Maya's sharp intake of breath.

"From the ships," Gaeta whispered. " They're not dangerous, so be quiet. If we're found down here we're all frakked."

It was like being yelled at in whispers by a little martinet soldier, made worse by the fact that he was sweating nervously. Gods, are we really following this man? She struggled to maintain her calm. There were other people trying to escape. They had been in the tunnels for an hour and on several occasions she had heard the footsteps of other people. They would get out, and then they would find another group of people.

Make do, she told herself as Gaeta stalked away, because right now this is the only game in town. The problem was that Felix Gaeta hardly inspired confidence. She didn't know him, not the way she knew officers like Kara Thrace and Lee Adama. She would have trusted either of them to take her anywhere. Gaeta on the other hand, was a bit of a mystery. Smart, she wouldn't deny that, but he always seemed so… detached. And close to Dr. Baltar. She knew he had been important in several aspects of Cylon research, but aside from that, he was just a face in the CIC.

And, of course, he was the election officer who caught her. Sure, she technically didn't know about the election fraud that Tori had orchestrated and she wasn't proud of that particular situation. Not at all. But look where they were now, huddling in a sewer hoping to avoid Cylons. She couldn't fault him for being honest, but she could fault him for being a naïve fool, or worse attempting to curry favor with Gauis Baltar. She hoped he was just a naïve fool, and that he had learned his lesson. Otherwise she was making a massive mistake trusting him.

It wasn't as though he was a particularly impressive example of a soldier either. She understood a little bit of the official and unofficial hierarchy on the Galactica. The pilots she knew, like Kara Thrace, and Lee Adama, and ex-pilots like Bill, tended to look down on the non combat people, and Gaeta was not impressing her. Lee or Kara would not needed to have been dragged into the school tent in a state of shock. They wouldn't be showing their nervousness. Both Lee and Kara, in a variety of scary situations, were cool and collected, while Gaeta was barely covering his obvious terror.

It wasn't exactly inspiring. Especially when she noticed his hands shaking while he was helping Maya adjust the baby backpack. What was the term, she thought as she resumed following Maya, oh yes, a desk jockey. Gaeta was a desk jockey playing at being a soldier.

Unfortunately he was a necessary evil. Jack had been right on that point. The water system was a maze, but while Gaeta was a frightened mess, she couldn't deny that he knew where he was going. She could tell that they were consistently moving west, and lower, which went along with the plan. If Gaeta knew what he was doing, they would find themselves at a river outlet in about three hours.

Clanging footsteps overhead made them stop for a long moment and then they were in a open crossed pipe conjunction. It would have made a good place for a break, except for the fact that she could hear footsteps pounding and splashing. She was going to say something when Gaeta lowered the gun he was holding. " What are you doing?" she hissed.

" It's not Cylons," he hissed back. " Listen."

She did, but it was just so much splashing in water. She looked at Cottle for back up. The older man shrugged. " I can't hear a damn thing," he said miserably, "It echoes too much down here."

Gaeta frowned. " **I** can hear them," he said forcefully. " It's a bigger group, maybe eight or nine people and they aren't Cylons."

Roslin ignored him and strained to hear what he was so certain about. The problem was that he was younger and it was possible that she and Cottle didn't hear as well. And Maya was no use, her attention was on the baby. Finally she picked up the faint conversation. Cursing mostly, and worried whispers. Most likely not Cylons then. " We should talk to them, see what they've heard."

She used her presidential tone, the one that brooked no disagreement. In the dim light of their flashlights, Gaeta rolled his eyes but didn't protest. " We could use the break," he said quietly.

" I agree," Cottle said as he leaned up against the wall. " Damn I want a cigarette…"

In a matter of minutes, it was obvious that a large group was moving towards them. Grudgingly, she admitted that Gaeta had a point about the noise. It was lucky that they were farther underground, because the new group was noisy. They were also mostly young, from what she could see. Young, carrying bundles and bickering amongst themselves. No children, and from what she could see, no one older than Maya or Gaeta. That was a little odd, the population of survivors had been skewed to the middle aged, the portion of the population most likely to be in transit. The crews of the Galactica and the Pegasus skewed the age curve as well, but even then there weren't a lot of young people in the colony. And these were young, and mostly civilian from what she could tell. The leader was ex military though, she could tell by how he stiffened slightly by reflex when he spotted Cottle and Gaeta. When he got closer, she could see the patches on his jacket that indicated he was from the Pegasus. Enlisted man of some sort, she thought, judging by his reaction.

"Aren't you Roger Teppler?" Cottle asked casually. " You worked maintenance as a deckhand, right?"

" Yes sir, on the Pegasus. Cain's ship. And you're Major Cottle, the doctor." Teppler pointed at Gaeta. " You're Lt. Gaeta, the Galactica's old tactical officer, President Baltar's advisor. And you," and he glared at Roslin, " you're the bitch that got us into this mess."

Out of the corner of her eye, Roslin saw both Cottle and Gaeta raise their weapons up just a little, not quite menacing but ready. She found herself putting her hand in her pocket, where she was keeping the third pistol. One of Cain's loyal crew members, she realized with growing fear. There were a few who had resented the death of their commanding officer, and she wasn't popular with them.

" We're all trying to get out of town before it gets locked down," Gaeta said easily. " There's a few ways out, we're heading west."

Teppler shook his head. " North is the way out. You go west, you just end up in the sewer."

That was interesting but the hostility from Teppler made her hesitate to suggest that they join forces.

Gaeta shook his head. " You go north, the Cylons will get you coming out of the water treatment facility. That's the only way out and you can bet they've already got Centurions there."

"We'll take our chances… sir." Teppler snarled the honorific. Maya recoiled slightly from him and the baby coughed. The young woman quickly quieted the baby but it drew the attention of the entire group of people. Including Teppler. " You people are fools bringing a baby with you." His people muttered in agreement.

" I think that's not your problem," Roslin said. She suddenly understood that Teppler was not frightened, that his eyes were glowing with excitement. The military did attract that sort, and they had their uses. Teppler was like Kara Thrace in that respect, except that he lacked her common sense.

Teppler ignored her. He sized up Gaeta and Cottle, particularly their weapons. Officers that went planetside were sent down with their sidearms, but enlisted people were not and one thing Adama had made certain of was that the civilian population wasn't well supplied with guns. It had seemed like a good idea at the time for only the police and designated people to have weapons. Now though, it meant most of the population was reduced to hand to hand combat with a physically superior enemy. Finally the young man said, " You," and he pointed to Gaeta, " can come with us. We need as many people as we can that can fight. I'd take the doctor too even though he'll slow us up, but not her, and not that baby."

In the dim light, Roslin saw Gaeta smile slightly, as if secretly amused by something. Finally he said, " That's not a very tempting offer considering that you're going the wrong way. We're heading west, we're not leaving anyone behind, and we had better get moving. Doctor Cottle, why don't you take the lead? I'll bring up the rear."

Teppler stepped forward, into Gaeta's space, which made it clear he was a larger man. He was also apparently betting on the fact that Gaeta wasn't going to shoot. " You want to get killed, fine. Sure, I know you designed the water system but you're just like all those other smug bastards that don't really know anything. The outlets to the west are caged off, so the animals on this shithole don't get in the system! Give me the gun. You and I both know you're not going to shoot."

"Your body would muffle the shot at this range," Gaeta said, still smiling slightly.

"And if he doesn't shoot, I will," Roslin said as she pulled the gun out of her pocket. She aimed at Teppler's head. She didn't like it, not one bit. They were all in a mess and the last thing they needed to be doing was fighting amongst themselves, but she knew that the two groups were never going to find common ground. Teppler had already declared himself king and her group simply didn't have the numbers to overcome that.

Not without shooting.

Beside her, Cottle also had his weapon aimed. He gestured to Teppler to back away. " I think perhaps your group should get moving first, Mr. Teppler."

Roslin waited until it was clear that the other group was out of ear shot to ask the question that was troubling her. " Is he right about the west outlets being blocked?" Because that did make the whole escape rather moot.

"No, not exactly." Gaeta said. " The outlets are caged off, but we can get through them. It's not a problem. What is a problem is that they are going to get caught if they keep heading north. We have to be out of the system before that happens."

Roslin nodded to that, even though she didn't like the glib way he was ignoring the outlet problem. She did trust Gaeta on his assumption about Teppler and his group. They were going to get caught and when they did, she had no doubt that Teppler himself would happily give up their plan in order to save his life. Which meant that they had to get out of the water system before that happened.


	6. Chains

It stank. It was dark and wet and while they weren't quite waist deep in sewage, Cottle was certain that it was leaking into his boots. Rescuing the damsel in distress was a younger man's game, he thought as he trudged along behind Roslin in the dark tunnel. He was right in grabbing Gaeta for the problem, he had been convinced of that before their trek in the tunnels began. He was more convinced of it four hours later, with his feet and knees and back all crying in pain. It wasn't the baby that was going to hold them up, it was him.

Laura was going to need to get over it. There was a good chance that they would be on their own in the woods for some time. If the other people escaping were smart, they were going to run and then go to ground. Finding groups to hook up with would be difficult. And the meeting with Teppler's group suggested that it might not be so easy to find a place in a resistance group.

Maya and Gaeta would be fine, of course. They were both young and fit, and he was particularly impressed with how Maya hadn't been complaining about the baby backpack being heavy. She just kept her mouth shut and did what she was told, and he knew she had to be frightened. Gaeta was holding his tongue against Laura's rather cutting barbs quite well, but that was to be as expected. When you had spent so long working under Colonel Tigh and then Gauis Baltar, you learned to not say every ugly remark that came into your head. The kid was discrete, in other words. Even Laura was doing better than he expected. She had been keeping up, better than he was. Still, they seemed to be making good time. They hadn't heard anyone else in the tunnels for hours and the increasing reek seemed to indicate that they were getting close to the exit.

He hoped it was soon. He was reasonably fit for a man in his sixties but it had been a good thirty years since he last went hiking. He had never spent the entire night walking through a sewer being chased by Cylons and he was dead tired.

Still, a sudden whiff of fresh air put a little bit of energy into his steps. " Are we getting close?" he whispered to Roslin. She nodded and then pointed, flicking her flashlight off with her other hand. He did the same.

Sure enough, far down the tunnel was a speck of light. Thank the gods, he thought to himself. He wasn't claustrophobic, he had served far too long on spaceships to find enclosed spaces upsetting, but the stench of human waste was all the more overpowering after the moment of fresh air. He suspected that they were lucky that Gaeta hadn't curled up in a ball and started crying from the horror of being dirty.

Cottle allowed himself a smile at that. At some point, when he had a moment, he was going to sit Laura Roslin down and explain to her that he had known the situation was scary beyond belief when he realized that the ship neat freak was willing to crawl through a sewer in order to escape. Whatever had happened on the Colonial One had frightened Felix Gaeta enough to overcome a well ingrained personality quirk. Laura needed to know that. Something seriously bad had happened, because the Lt. Gaeta he had known for years was clean to the point of compulsion. He had honestly been worried that between the invasion, the mystery of what had led to Gaeta's firing, and the walking through liquid feces, was going to lead Gaeta into any number of possible bad psychological reactions. Like freaking out and killing them all. Or curling up in a ball and crying for days.

Which would simply add ammunition to Laura Roslin's mental file of "Reasons to Treat Felix Gaeta Like Crap". It also would have been a complete bitch to deal with, so one of his many prayers during the long night was had been a plea to Apollo to not use the situation as an opportunity to teach him any new healing arts. He just wasn't in the mood to deal with it.

" Looks like we are caged in," Roslin said quietly as they got closer to the end of the tunnel. There was some thin light coming in, which wasn't surprising. By his watch, it was very early in the morning. They would still have some cover in the forest, real sunrise wasn't for another hour. That was good, because he had a pretty good idea that people were going to notice Laura was gone and the Cylons would be looking. Looking for Gaeta and he as well. They were both reasonably well known. Maya was not, but coupled with the baby, the Cylons were going to be very curious very quickly. Better that they find someplace to hide before the searching started.

Of course, that was if they were even able to get out. As they got closer, he could see that the tunnel entrance was indeed caged off by not only wire screening but also a heavy metal grate. That was going to be difficult.

Gaeta easily tore down the screening and then rattled the bars. Cottle could see that the grating was chained closed. Not that heavy of a chain, but there was nothing for them to use to pry at the grate except their bare hands. Finally Gaeta turned to the three of them and said, " Stand back. I'm going to see if I can kick this and break the chain."

"Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable," Roslin said after a moment. Her sarcasm was more than a little noticeable. In fact, Cottle couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her sound that way.

And he didn't like the sudden flash of anger on Gaeta's face. Gaeta was generally even tempered, the few times he'd heard about angry displays were notable mostly because of how rare they were. The younger man glared at Roslin. " If you have a better frakking idea, Madame President, now is the frakking time. If I shoot the frakking chain, the ricochet could kill us all. Anything? No? Then shut the frak up and let me kick the damn chain!" Gaeta spun around and viciously kicked the grate.

He was going to hurt himself doing that, Cottle thought. He didn't say anything though. Instead he pulled Roslin back a few feet and whispered into her ear, " I know you're angry. Don't think I don't understand why. You need to put that aside for just a little while. Right now, you're pushing someone who is already wound tighter than you realize, over things that can't be helped."

Roslin was quiet for a long moment. They watched as Gaeta kicked the grate again and again. Finally Roslin said quietly, "This isn't going to work, Jack. We're trapped here. Even if he does break that chain, that's just going to leave behind evidence that we escaped this way."

"It's a long shot," Cottle agreed softly, " But he's right about the ricochet, and…." He paused as Gaeta slammed his foot against the chain. They all heard the snapping noise and for one horrified moment, Cottle was positive he was hearing the sound of Gaeta's bones break. But instead, the grate doors swung open, and pieces of chain fell into the murky water. Gaeta was breathing hard and looking a bit shocked and wild eyed but he wasn't screaming in pain. " Well, looks like we can leave."

" The sun is coming up, we should get as far into the forest as we can," Gaeta said after a moment. He quickly exited the tunnel, waiting only to help Maya down with the baby. No surprise there, Cottle thought, the idea of being trapped in a sewer had probably propelled Gaeta to his feat of chain breaking.

Of course, he thought as he looked at the chain, before hopping down into the water and heading for the dry ground of the river bank, the chain was pretty heavy and almost new. And Gaeta wasn't limping when he should have broken bone.

That was interesting.


	7. The Election

The river water was icy cold. Gaeta didn't let that bother him. Everything below his knees was disgusting and while they had stopped for a few moments to let Dr. Cottle rest and to feed the baby, there wasn't time to change into dry clean clothes. Wet but reasonably clean beat wet and soaked with sewage any day. Later, when they were in a safer spot, he would scrub everything with the soap he had packed but diluting the stench was the only thing he could think to do that would help him calm down.

Because he desperately needed to calm down. He wasn't one for drinking heavily, it dulled the senses and was generally a bad idea but he wanted to get drunk. The problem was that there was nothing to get drunk with except whatever was in the doctor's little flask. He knew his own tolerances pretty well, he needed a lot of alcohol to even come close to getting drunk. Thinking about that just made him wonder if his high tolerance had something to do with his Cylon nature.

And that did nothing to help him calm down. Standing in the ice cold water though, it was almost as though it cooled off the heat in his blood. He was tired, he could admit that, although he didn't need the rest that Cottle did. Roslin needed the break too, although he knew she wouldn't admit it. He was tired but he could still walk for hours, possibly days. He would prefer to sleep for a few hours and eat before they went further, but he was far from exhausted. It reminded him of that time right after the attack on the twelve colonies when the Cylons kept coming every thirty three minutes. He had been tired then, more tired than he was now, but still able to work without complaint.

Of course it was because he was a Cylon. It only made sense, especially when he recalled how Sharon Valerii had been so upbeat and able to work. I am a Cylon, he thought as he waded in the cold water. It was still as oddly exhilarating as when he first found out, he couldn't deny that. He still felt… better. More alive. As much as he wanted to believe that Six had just been lying to him, he couldn't deny the reality. He felt stronger and faster and even smarter, as though his mind had suddenly taken a jump forward.

That was why it was so dangerous for him to stay with Cottle, Roslin, and Maya. And especially the baby. It seemed like a normal baby… he could even hear it crying in the distance. It wasn't a normal baby though, not if it was half Cylon and half human. At the same time, he couldn't just leave them now that they had gotten outside the perimeter of the town. He would be fine on his own, he knew that. Better than fine really. It would be easier to hide on his own, easier to run, easier to get food. Even if he wasn't a Cylon, just a regular human, it would be easier. Cottle was slow, Maya was dumb, and Roslin hated him. He would be better off quietly sneaking away. But then, that had been true the night before and it would have been much easier to have run off then. Leaving them now was tantamount to murder, he could sense that.

And he had to get everyone moving again if they were going to make it to the caves before the sun got much higher. It wasn't foolproof, heading for the caves, but it was cover and a pretty good area to hide in. There were a lot of caves, many interlinked, and it was unlikely that the Cylons would think to search there.

At least, right away. What made the caves a good hiding spot now was that they were quite far from the town and the odds were against anyone getting that far from the town in one night. The next few days would be spent consolidating power, issuing ID cards, rounding up runners who didn't make it far outside the perimeter and looking for people of interest. It didn't take any Cylon power to know that, it was common sense. He had paid attention in class at the Academy and the best tactical move was to shut the town down, get it organized, and then go look for the runners because they couldn't have gotten far.

Of course, he thought darkly as he stepped out of the water, I probably never actually went to the Academy. I just have cover story memories of the Caprican Military Academy implanted to make me a better sleeper agent. But that was an unpleasant road to travel and he shook away the thought as he spotted Maya walking towards the river's edge. " Maya, don't go too far away, we need to get going soon."

" I just wanted to wash off," she said cheerfully. She stepped into the water and began splashing about.

He shrugged. He certainly couldn't disagree with that sentiment. " Be careful… there's a pretty strong current." Maya nodded as she waded out. He walked back to the small clearing where Cottle and Roslin were. Roslin had the baby in her lap and was giving her a bottle. " We should get moving. It's still early morning. The caves are only about a mile away. It'd be better to get under cover before they start searching for us." Because there would be a search party as soon as Roslin's absence was noticed. Possibly a big one if there wasn't a lot of problems taking over the human settlement.

Cottle nodded as he slowly stood up. " A mile… I can't remember the last time I hiked a mile in the woods." He was moving stiffly, Gaeta realized. It made sense, Cottle wasn't young and the trip hadn't been easy. They had been up all night, no doubt after working a full day. Technically, he was in charge of their group, although he was positive that Roslin saw him as nothing more than a convenient tool to be used and discarded as soon as someone better came along. That meant he had to make sure that everyone was able to keep up because the gods knew that if Cottle had a heart attack from exerting himself, it would somehow be his fault.

"It's just a mile. Not too far. And then we can get some real rest." Gaeta tried to sound cheerful.

Roslin set the baby down on the blanket she had spread out. " I'll carry Isis then. Maya said her back was bothering." She looked up suddenly. " Where's Maya?"

Gaeta turned and looked back at the river, intensely aware that he no longer heard the background noise of splashing about. He didn't see the young woman at all. "She was washing up… I told her not to go too far out." But suddenly he had a very bad feeling. He ran to the edge of the river, with Roslin right behind him. Maya was no where to be seen.

" Maya?" Roslin called. " Maya, we're looking for you, say something!"

Gaeta didn't wait. He took off his jacket and tossed it aside. The current in the river was strong, and there was a deep pool fifty feet down river. " She's in the water. I'm going in. Go get Dr. Cottle."

Jumping into the ice cold water was much worse than wading in it. It bit into his skin like knives stabbing him. Don't stay down too long, he warned himself as he peered around underwater. There were a lot of roots at the bottom and the current was very strong. He popped back up to the surface for air he didn't really need and realized that Roslin had joined him in the water. "You shouldn't do this," he warned.

" She's only been gone a few minutes," Roslin said through chattering teeth. " It's not too late but faster with two of us looking." He couldn't argue with that, but as each minute passed, the reality began to sink in to both of them. If Maya had lost her footing in the water and been swept under, she had been under too long and they were searching for a body. If they stayed in much longer… He could barely move from the cold and that meant that Roslin was probably hypothermic. Hell, he was probably hypothermic. That meant they had to stop being stupid.

He grabbed Roslin the next time she came up for air. " We have to stop," he said, his own teeth chattering as he spoke. " The water is too cold… She's been down over fifteen minutes…. Even if we find her…." He hesitated. " I'm sorry…"

For a moment, a long moment, all he saw on her face was devastation. They were probably close, he thought after a moment. They had lived together for a year. He could understand that. What he didn't appreciate was the sudden slap to the face that she laid onto him, followed by a roundhouse punch to his eye. It didn't hurt, everything was too numb from the cold water but it was a surprise.

" This is your fault," she said simply and then turned her back and headed back to the shoreline.

The problem was that she wasn't entirely wrong, Gaeta thought as he followed her. She was right in general, he was really a Cylon and therefore the enemy. She just didn't understand the harsh reality. Maya wasn't very smart, not at all, but it served no purpose to have her die. In fact, it frakked things up a lot worse.

His hands shook as he tried to strike the match against the wood. Finally he gave up and handed the match to Cottle. " I can't do this."

Cottle took the match and lit it, and then lit the fire. They had walked through the woods to the caves and despite the lack of tactical safety, bunkered down in the first reasonably large cave. They just couldn't go any further, Roslin was shivering despite the fact that he had given up his jacket to her so she could still carry the baby without getting the baby wet. And Cylons apparently could get hypothermic enough for it to matter because despite the fast walk carrying heavy gear, he still felt frozen to the core. He still couldn't feel his face enough to tell if it was swelling or not. With his luck it would.

The baby was crying. "Why is the baby crying?" he asked as he held his frozen hands over the fire.

Roslin sniffed in disgust. " Maybe because her mother is dead."

" It wasn't my fault," he snapped. " Do you think I wanted her dead? I told her to be careful. I can't hold everyone's hand on this little camping trip!"

Roslin glared at him. Her hair was wet and stringy and she looked less like the calm and pleasant school teacher cum politician and more like an avenging demon from one of the religious books. " We have been with you for less than twenty four hours and Maya's already dead. It doesn't inspire confidence, Mr. Gaeta."

" I can leave right now," he said angrily. He rose to his feet. He could leave, it was true. It would be rough going but not impossible for him to walk out and lose himself in the cold forest.

Cottle stepped in front of him. " Sit down, Mr. Gaeta. You're not walking out of this cave until I'm certain you won't drop dead of hypothermia. Sit." He jiggled the baby in his arms as he spoke. Gaeta took a seat again and Cottle managed to loom over both of them.

" I am taking the baby outside this cave," he intoned darkly, " and you two are going to deal with the presidential election. Because I'm tired of it, because that's whats really bothering you two, and I am too damned old to play referee between two children who both should know better." He pointed his free hand at Gaeta. " You are acting like you had nothing but the purest of motives in reporting Ms. Roslin's attempts at election fraud. I don't doubt your highmindedness, Felix, but I know I can think of a couple motivators you had that weren't pure. And you," and he pointed at Roslin, " need to stop acting like you're the perfectly innocent party. Both of you think that the other profited, and neither of you understand it's simply not true. Now, frakking talk to each other and get over it before I kill you both." With that he walked out of the cave.

Gaeta considered what the man had said as he held his hands out to the fire and looked at Roslin. He had thought long and hard about the election, especially as it had become clear that he had made a mistake in a lot of ways. " I wanted to do the right thing," he said after a long moment, not looking at Roslin. " You know, part of the oath of the officer corps is to defend the law." An oath that he might not have actually taken, a little voice chimed in his head, but he ignored it. " I believe in the law, and that is one reason why I reported the ballot situation to Admiral Adama. But it's not the only reason. I wanted Colonel Tigh to finally get into trouble for something so that Admiral Adama would have to do something about him." It wasn't the best of reasons, and he had never planned to tell anyone but if he couldn't tell her the truth about what he actually was, he could at least be honest about the motivation. " I still would have reported it but I won't lie and tell you that nailing Tigh wasn't part of it." He sighed. " And I should have known better because doing the right thing is never rewarded on the Galactica."

" You ended up as the president's military advisor," Roslin spat. " And let me get this straight, you just wanted to get Col. Tigh in trouble?"

" It was the right thing to do, it just helped that Col. Tigh would get into trouble. And it didn't work," he spat back. " I got in trouble because I apparently was supposed to know Admiral Adama wanted the election fixed. Col. Tigh is a drunk, and abusive, and scary as hell to work with, and he's the admiral's best pal so even when he breaks the law and stuffs a ballot box, he gets off **and** gets to punish me by ridiculing me in front of everyone. He got to keep his job. I loved my job. I didn't want to leave the fleet, I didn't even want to stay on this planet. But the colonel had to make me an example and the admiral didn't care as long as it didn't involve his son or any of his pet officers. Admiral Adama made it very clear that I was done, that I would be replaced regardless of whether I accepted the military advisor position, because loyalty to him was much more important than loyalty to the law." He paused. " Unless your name is Lee Adama, and then you can commit mutiny and be rewarded for it."

As stupid as it was, all things considered, it still burned that years of loyalty had meant nothing to the admiral. It hurt. It had helped a little that Dr. Baltar had been genuinely pleased to receive him on staff, but in the end he still missed wearing a uniform and working in the CIC.

Of course that was done. He was a Cylon and it would never be safe for him to be on a fleet ship. It still hurt just the same. " If you think that working for Dr. Baltar was some reward, then you don't know Dr. Baltar as well as I thought. I was not hoping for a reward and I did not get one, and the last thing I ever wanted was to see the Cylons invade again."

The very last thing he ever wanted was to find out that he was a Cylon, but that was too much honesty. " I didn't want Maya to die… I didn't want any of this to happen. If I knew that this was how things would turn out… I would have just ignored it. But…"

" But what?" Roslin asked. She was smiling slightly, sensing victory no doubt.

"You would have been caught anyway." He rubbed his hands together against the cold. " Councilman Zarek was already demanding a recount, and even if I didn't spot the bad ballots, someone would have because I documented the bad ballots in the record. It was a bad plan, and you still would have lost only it would have been even worse because you would have gotten into trouble and not been elected and we would still be here in some fashion."

Roslin looked at him intently. Finally she said, " I was counting on Bill to ignore Councilman Zarek. But it wasn't a very good plan, and I knew it, but I also **knew** deep down that settling this planet was a terrible idea and I had to try. But," and suddenly she really smiled, something Gaeta had only seen rarely in the time he had known her, " I liked being president and I wanted to stay president and a part of me didn't care how I did it as long as it happened." She sighed. " I wish Billy hadn't died. He would have come up with a better plan."

" I liked Billy…" Gaeta let himself smile. He had liked Billy Keikeya, and respected him. " And he would have had a better plan. Something that didn't include Col. Tigh."

Again Roslin smiled, " At least," she said softly, " You and I have found at least one point of agreement."


	8. Six On Two

The makeshift morgue was only half full. All things considered, Six considered the mission a success. She wasn't surprised that the human settlement was so easily pacified. The humans were tired. Tired of fighting, tired of struggling, and tired of running. Most of them had settled down within the first three days. Distributing food had helped, as had keeping the executions relatively discrete. Fortunately, there hadn't been much need for killing, just a few die-hards with guns. There had been a lot of escapes on the first night, close to two thousand people had run. About half had been found, and most of those were happy to be caught. New Caprica was not Caprica, after all. Few of the humans had any experience in any wilderness, let alone a dangerous rough wilderness. A night or two in the cold with no food, and most of them had been happy to return to the makeshift town.

Of course they were all photographed, fingerprinted, and retina scanned before being released back into the general population. It paid to know who the troublemakers were. Those that had been recaptured would be watched carefully. She certainly wasn't foolish enough to think that the escape attempts would stop but the important thing was to get an accurate head count and close off the obvious holes in the perimeter.

The most obvious hole was the sewer system. It was almost too funny to be believed. Trust a Two to find a way to convince an entire human society that their first priority should be proper bathing facilities. But Two had done it, and without the benefit of knowing the Cylon plan.

They were personable, the Twos. And clean, very clean. Which reminded her of her purpose. Two, Felix as he called himself, had gone missing. She wasn't worried, he was a Two and they were well known for their ability to size up and make logical decisions. It wasn't a surprise that he had run off. She had expected that. Twos were very thoughtful and she had assumed he would leave, at least for a while, to absorb and contemplate what he had learned.

What she hadn't expected was that he would take the ex-president of the humans and the only trained human doctor with him. She turned to the prisoner that the Centurians had caught two days earlier in the sewer system. " If you tell the truth, you'll be allowed to live," she said calmly to the human man. She unzipped the body bag. " Is this one of the humans that was with President Roslin?"

Centurians had found the body floating in the river that the sewage system outflowed into. The human male, Teppler, had insisted upon capture that he had seen the president with other people and that they had been heading west. The body of the young woman had been found near the western outflow pipes, and the animal guards had been torn down from the pipe exits. She was inclined to think it had been Felix Gaeta. He knew the water system better than anyone on the planet. Unlike the average human, he had the strength to get through the barrier. She simply wanted to be sure.

The man, Teppler, looked down at the body, and then up at her. He was wild eyed and bruised. The centurions had captured his entire group and they had foolishly fought. Several had been killed and she had been inclined to let them all be executed until he had offered to share information. He had not made any effort to include his fellow escapees in the deal, but she had the survivors sent to the internment area. "That's her! She had a baby and she was with that bitch Roslin."

A baby… That was interesting. " And who else was with her?" She had gotten the information already, but humans had a tendency to lie.

" Dr. Cottle! Lt. Gaeta! They said they were going west!" He started to say more, but Six cut him off with a withering look.

"Take him away." The human was no longer necessary. " Don't kill him, put him in the camp with the others. He'll be useful in our experiments." Now, she thought as she looked down at the dead woman, just what was going on here? It wasn't surprising that Gaeta had thrown in with the humans, she had intentionally made sure to outline his options in as negative of a fashion as possible. It wasn't much of an experiment if Gaeta simply shrugged and asked to be taken to the nearest basestar for re-orientation.

She had been worried that Gaeta would do just that. That was the problem with Twos in general. They generally did the right thing because it was right. They liked rules. They liked making rules and enforcing rules and they acted as though they had some sort of code of honor that demanded that they do exactly what they said they would do and they got very upset if they had to deviate from the agreed upon plan. They hadn't been happy about the change in plans, and she was slightly surprised that Gaeta hadn't fallen in line.

Of course, he knew nothing about Cylons, or his brothers tendencies. He shared those tendencies though, just like she shared her sisters attitudes and behaviors, and she had to admit, she was surprised that he had so easily broken away. He wasn't like Sharon, the Eight model. By all reports, including Gauis's somewhat drunken and bitter reminiscing, Felix Gaeta was bright and analytical. Those were traits he shared with his brother Cylons. Unlike the Eight sleeper agent, no demands had ever been made of him. Certainly, that had been a mistake, Two was inherently more stable than Eight and even though she had rethought destroying the human race, the wiser choice would have been activating the Two who controlled the bridge of the Galactica. But he hadn't been activated and she had seen it in his eyes that he had never even considered the possibility that his true nature was Cylon.

Which made him perfect for her experiment. In his mind, Felix Gaeta was human. He was a Cylon, of course, and his basic personality was Two, but he thought differently. Or tried to, at least. She was intrigued by that. She had gone undercover among the humans, made them want her and love her. That was her tendency, and she and her sisters had learned from much experience that it was difficult to fight. She had never thought she was human though. She had always known her true nature and she never had to question what side she wanted to be on.

And yet she had questioned it. Humans, despite their murderous flaws, were somehow… more alive, and she wanted to know why. As much as a Two should have turned himself, and her, into the Cylon authorities, he hadn't. That meant he was different. She wanted to know why. And how.

She also needed ex-president Laura Roslin back in the fold as soon as possible. Symbols were important to the humans, and Roslin was an important symbol. More so than Gauis, who was willing but didn't hold the people's hearts. She needed Laura Roslin to quell the secondary rising up of the people. Most of them were quiet now, but once the shock of the invasion wore off, there would be trouble. They would need someone to keep the crowds pacified. Roslin would be perfect. Trusted, and respected, and Six doubted that it would take much behavior modification therapy to get the woman in line with the current attitudes.

The baby was the interesting factor. Roslin by all reports was no fool, and neither was Cottle the doctor, or Gaeta for that matter. A baby was a huge liability when running. Roslin by all reports, while trusted by the people, wasn't known for her motherly attitudes. She had read the reports made by Cottle, and by Roslin. The hybrid baby, Sharon's baby, had died. Supposedly. Only a sentimental fool would have taken a baby with them on a risky escape. She might be the first to connect the dots, but she doubted she would be the last. Three was noticeably paying attention to the round up efforts and Two, safely ensconced on the basestars, was darkly displeased with the turn of events planetside. Two was watching very closely.

It made her little experiment a bad idea. Finding Roslin was important to the mission. Finding the baby was important as well. If it was just a child, then so be it. If it was **the** child, that was an entirely different story. God demanded that she make sure that the humans had told the truth. They did lie as a matter of course, and Roslin hadn't trusted Baltar. It wouldn't be in the records if the baby survived.

She frowned as she looked down at the dead woman. The problem was Two, and her own curiosity. Two would never allow their sleeper agent brother to be boxed. Even now, if Felix Gaeta turned himself in, all that would happen would be a mild interrogation, coupled with a few weeks of constant reassurance that he was in fact much better than human. Twos greatly enjoyed each other, which was why Two was so irritated that Gaeta was missing and presumed to have slipped out to the human resistance.

Her problem was worse. Gaeta was with Roslin and the baby, and if they were captured, it was extremely unlikely that he would maintain his human persona. If he was killed, that was even worse, because he would be uploaded and he would be unable to hold anything back. Because he was a Two and while a Two could mislead, their natural tendency was to tell the truth. She would be found out, and most likely boxed for sedition. Setting a sleeper agent loose, activated but with no idea of the plan was… frowned upon.

I have to find them, she thought as she strode out of the morgue. The baby needs to be examined. Roslin needs to be encouraged to cooperate. And Gaeta needed to understand that while honesty was admirable and far more Cylon than human, he would need to keep his mouth shut. She was more than willing to let him share the glory of capturing Roslin and saving the special child. He simply needed to do her the courtesy of lying about what she had done.


	9. Down by the fishing hole

The water was dark, and still, and the faint star light that filtered through the nebula clouds twinkled on the surface. A clear night was a rarity on New Caprica. It was also more dangerous, but Jack Cottle didn't move from the log he was sitting on. He couldn't outrun a Cylon, even if he had been forty years younger. It **was** dark, the sun wouldn't rise for another hour, and his hearing was good enough to hear a Cylon raider fly over head.

He was technically standing watch. He had relieved Gaeta an hour earlier. Gaeta was supposed to wake him up at midnight, but had taken it upon himself to stand a double watch. Gaeta did that a lot, with both him and with Roslin. He also was carrying the lionshare of their gear, without complaint and foraging for food when they stopped. There had been times, in the last five days, that Cottle was convinced that they would all be dead if Gaeta hadn't been unnaturally alert to Cylon patrols or if the younger man wasn't physically dragging them through the woods. It was helpful. Not exactly unusual, Lt. Gaeta had a reputation as an essentially nice enough fellow, and for doing the right thing. So it seemed like it had been providential that he had run into Gaeta the night the Cylons had come back. Even after five days of hard running with little food and next to no sleep, Gaeta was still on his feet and if he wasn't cheerful, it wasn't exactly a great situation they were in.

It was also oddly concerning, for several reasons. Cottle cast out the small piece of line they had for fishing and considered the problem. Gaeta had already spent most of the night fishing and for a change there was plenty for breakfast, but Cottle found the process of fishing helped him think. And he had a lot to think about.

There was no way that Felix Gaeta, the Felix Gaeta he knew and had physically examined on numerous occasions, should be just fine after five days of humping a 100 pound rucksack through the wilderness. He wasn't a marine, and while he was a reasonably healthy man, he wasn't a particularly strong man. He also was sleeping two or three hours a night, taking double guard shifts, and barely eating enough to stay alive.

Which led Cottle down two different paths of thought. The happier path was that Gaeta was overcompensating because he felt guilty. It wasn't hard to believe. Felix had always been conscientious and careful about his decisions. The election and its aftermath…. He knew it had been hard on Gaeta, and was worse now. The fact that Gaeta was the only truly physically fit member of their group simply allowed an outlet for that. It wasn't healthy. It meant that at some point Gaeta was going to collapse. That was bad. They needed Gaeta. If, gods forbid, Gaeta were to die, Cottle knew without a doubt that he and Roslin would be dead or captured within weeks. As it was, he had serious doubts that any resistance group would take them without at least one of them being able to fight. He personally had bargaining power as a doctor, but that assumed he would live long enough to need to worry about it. He had his doubts on that. Sleeping in the cold, the constant running… No, it was Laura who really had to be concerned if Gaeta died because she would have a hard time on her own.

But that was if he was right, and on the happier path. The problem, he thought darkly as he dragged the fishing line across the water, was that he wanted to be wrong about the second option. Because that was much less likely to end well.

The real problem was that he thought Felix Gaeta just might be a Cylon. That path opened up a lot of ugly things to worry about. Not the least of which was what sort of game was Gaeta playing if he was a Cylon. That was the biggest problem Cottle had with the Cylon theory. It simply didn't make sense. If Gaeta was a Cylon, there was no reason for him to be running, and **every** reason for him to have led them into a trap. Especially when they were in the sewer. All the man would have needed to do was throw in with Teppler's group. Roslin would have argued, and Cottle would have too, but eventually they would have gone with Teppler's group. And then they would have been captured. He didn't pretend to be an expert in the sewer system, but after forty years of doctoring, Cottle knew people, and Gaeta was an easier read than most. Teppler's people had walked to a group of Cylon Centurions that had captured them.

Which meant that Gaeta had turned down a prime opportunity to get them captured. Which didn't make sense if he was a Cylon. It also didn't make sense that Gaeta had broken the lock on the animal screens because they could have been caught there. That didn't make sense, not if the Cylons wanted Laura Roslin. They might not know about the baby, he didn't think Cylons were telepathic and Gaeta hadn't been out of his sight since the escape, but if Gaeta was a Cylon, that would certainly be the first thing he mentioned to his fellow robots.

If the man was a Cylon, and that was the question wasn't it? He hated thinking that way, thinking such thoughts about a man who had saved his life more than once in the last few years. Cottle sighed. It wasn't just that Gaeta was holding up better than he had any right to. If it was just that, he wouldn't be suspicious. At least not that suspicious.

The chain though… the chain was troubling. Without the chain, he would go back to his first choice, that Gaeta was overcompensating. It just wasn't possible for Gaeta to have broken the chain though. Not without hurting himself, and he hadn't and in fact even he had seemed surprised.

Cottle didn't pretend to be a Cylon expert, but he knew a few things about them. Sharon had been an eye opener. He had realized in retrospect, that Sharon had struggled with her identity. The suicide attempt, the odd behavior leading up to her shooting the commander, it all made sense considering what she really was. He couldn't pin something that obvious onto Gaeta but he was worried just the same. Gaeta had been completely shocked when he had found the man the night of the invasion, and yes it had been a shocking day for all, but Gaeta had been… struggling. **Something** had upset him to the point that he had been near physical collapse from shock. In the last five days, he had kept himself extremely busy, the better to not think about whatever had happened.

He found himself very curious about that as well. Gaeta **hadn't** been hit or beaten, not in any noticeable way. They were living in close enough quarters that he would have noticed the signs of assault. So Gaeta hadn't gotten a good-bye thumping by the new Cylon rulers. Something had happened with Baltar, and Gaeta had dropped enough hints to figure out that it had been disillusioning but not shocking. But something had happened, something bad. Bad enough to put the otherwise steady and reliable young officer into a state of sheer panic. Cottle couldn't help but be reminded of how Sharon Valerii had wandered about the Galactica looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a car for months. Gaeta seemed much better than that, but the behavior was the issue.

The interesting question was what Gaeta was doing. If he was a human, his actions made perfect sense. It was just worrisome that he was choosing to work himself into a bad physical state. If he was a Cylon, then he was badly confused about what side he was on. Cottle didn't consider himself a fool. If Gaeta was a Cylon, then they were frakked.

Unless Gaeta had chosen the human side. Which Cottle didn't know. He didn't even know if it was possible for a Cylon to choose anything other than what the Cylons said to choose. On the other hand, he couldn't even begin to count how many times Gaeta had plotted emergency jumps for the entire fleet. Every time they had jumped, Gaeta could have dropped them into a sun, or worse, and then been happily resurrected by his fellow Cylons. But that had never happened, and was the best argument he had against the Cylon theory. For that matter, Gaeta could have killed them all in the sewer if he wanted. Or while they were sleeping. Or tied them up and called his Cylon buddies to capture them. Or…

Or maybe he was just a human being working himself to death, Cottle thought as he stood up and stretched. If it looks like a horse, one of his professors had said in medical school, it's usually a horse, not a zebra. I'll keep an eye on him, he promised himself as he headed back to the clearing where they had set up camp for the night. But Laura and I aren't going to have the conversation. Not yet. Laura was a good person, but even a suggestion that Gaeta was a Cylon would set off her natural instincts and he wasn't ready to deal with it.

Especially if he was right about one of his musings. If Gaeta was a Cylon, he was choosing not to kill them, and choosing not to turn them over to the Cylon authorities. That was interesting. Gaeta had been on the Galactica for three years before the destruction of the colonies. If he was a Cylon, then he had been in deep cover the whole time. If he hadn't known he was a Cylon, and considering what they had learned from the first Sharon, that was entirely possible, then Felix Gaeta had thought he was human for a very long time. Possibly up until just a few days ago. Discovering **that** would explain the shock and a lot of the odd furtive behavior. Gaeta was trying to hide his nature. A difficult thing for someone who had a reputation for being an honest chump at times.

But that was a thought for later. They still had to find other people before he could seriously consider sitting Gaeta down and having a long talk about his ancestry. He scanned the nearby forest, and was shocked to see a blonde woman wandering in the distance. He quickly looked away. He knew that woman as Shelly Godfrey and she most certainly **was** a Cylon. And if he had seen her, then she had likely seen him.

And that couldn't possibly be good.


	10. Standoff!

The baby was still asleep, and Roslin thanked the gods for that. Isis was a good baby, but she was also just over a year old and that often made things difficult. She personally had never wanted children. As near as she could tell, neither had either of her male companions. Cottle had never married and was a military doctor. He had spent a lifetime avoiding children. Gaeta was a tougher read. Judging by how awkwardly he picked up the baby and how much instruction he had needed in basic baby care, he certainly hadn't had any younger brothers or sisters. He tended to busy himself with other tasks rather than deal with Isis

And there was plenty of other things to do, things she didn't find easy. They were on the run, in an unknown wilderness and she hadn't been camping since she was a young girl. Gaeta spent his time in camp foraging and standing guard and it was hard to remain hostile to someone that was keeping her alive. The food was going to run out eventually, and while she was starting to get an idea of what was edible, Gaeta clearly had been paying attention to the scientific reports on New Caprica. He was attempting to cook the fish like things he'd caught the night before. The science reports said they were edible as real fish if cooked and visually they were pretty similar. Taste wise… she had never been fond of seafood but a meal caught in the woods meant that the packaged rations they had could be stretched that much farther. Food was going to be an issue soon enough.

So she took the proffered fish from Gaeta with a pleasant smile. He was trying to be nice and therefore she had to be gracious. " Thank you, Mr. Gaeta." With luck she would be able to choke it down.

He carefully divided the remaining fish into two portions and set both on the edge of the fire. " I'll go get Dr. Cottle."

She watched as he walked away and then looked at the fish. Well cooked, as well as possible over a very tiny fire. For a change there was a lot. She hoped they found other people soon. Not because it would improve the dining situation, because she knew that wasn't likely to improve at all. More people meant more food supplies needed and New Caprica had never been fruitful. She just missed conversation, real conversation. She had a sort of cheerless détente with Gaeta, she wasn't exactly fond of him but she couldn't fault his devotion to the task of keeping all of them alive. He simply didn't talk very much outside of the daily routine and then it was warnings and suggestions. Never anything else, and her more compassionate side was concerned but not enough to stop him from working so hard.

Because Cottle had been right, in one of their quiet talks while Gaeta had been standing guard. She wasn't a young woman, and Cottle wasn't a young man and there was a good chance that the only people who survived their jaunt in the woods would be Gaeta and Isis. Jack Cottle was a smart man, and he was fairly convinced that her only chance, and the baby's only chance, was to stick with Gaeta at least until they found the resistance. Jack didn't say it out loud, but he was trying to prepare her for the idea that he might die. She suspected he had a similar conversation with Gaeta. She didn't doubt the man's assessment, but it was the last thing she wanted. She had never understood how Cottle had ended up in the military until their run from the Cylons and then it had become clear. Underneath that gruff exterior was a tactical thinker, and he was right. He was too old to haul a baby around the wilderness and so was she.

So Gaeta had to be cultivated, if not as a friend then at least as a respected member of the group. Because he could simply walk away one night while on guard duty and leave them to die. It wasn't likely, in fact Cottle had laughed when she had suggested the possibility, but she wasn't willing to ignore the fact that Gaeta might make a decision in favor of his own survival. He could go at any time, she was no fool on that point, but she had a feeling that he was too methodical to leave every bit of survival gear. She almost agreed with Cottle anyway. Gaeta seemed too conscientious to run off and leave them.

That didn't stop her from feeling nervous when he walked out of sight. That was what had happened to Maya. She regretted her harsh words to Gaeta about the death. She knew it had impacted him, he cringed every time she looked at him with less than a smile on her face. Of course, he had also spent a year working with Baltar, and before that with Colonel Tigh. He was treating her the same way he would them, as a potentially irrational person who would, if pushed, strike him for perceived errors. And isn't that nice, she thought darkly as she started to pack up the baby's things, he sees me as potentially violent. The real problem was that she had no idea whether that was normal for him or not, whether she had somehow set herself up in his mind as a shrieking harpy. She didn't know him, even after five days she didn't even know where he was from and while she tried to recall him from the Galactica, it was like recalling a cipher. He was a face in the CIC, someone who almost always was quiet. Even on New Caprica, he had been barely discernable. A smart person put their request to the government to Gaeta, not Baltar.

He reminded her of Billy, except that something was wrong and she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

And it wasn't as though there weren't enough things wrong. They were running out of diapers. The baby was constantly crying when she wasn't asleep and they had nothing for her in the way of toys or anything really. The baby food was half gone, and she didn't know where more of that was going to come from. It wasn't like she could just whip out a breast. " It'll get better," she told herself quietly. It simply couldn't get worse.

And then it did. She heard a shot, and then another. Shots fired meant trouble, a lot of trouble. She ducked down over the baby and then took the child in one arm. With the other hand she drew the pistol she carried. Please just be a wild animal, she thought as she carefully walked down to the riverbank.

But it wasn't, just like she knew it wasn't. Cottle was standing, pointing a gun at a tall blonde woman. Gaeta was on the ground, one hand holding his gun, and the other pressing against his calf. Blood was seeping through his fingers and Roslin hated herself for first thinking about a complete problem **that** was going to be.

Because that was only a problem if they survived the next few minutes. The Cylon was wounded, Roslin could see red blood dripping down its white leather overcoat. It didn't appear to be in pain, it even smiled at her, taking in the gun she held with barely a nod. Roslin would have known it was a Cylon just on appearance, it looked just like Shelly Godfrey and the Cylon the Pegasus had kept in the brig, but the slight smile it gave her as it looked at her… it made her skin crawl.

" So I was right," it said after a long moment. " You three are together. That makes things easier."

"Shut up!" Roslin said, keeping the gun pointed directly at it. " What happened?"

" I spotted her," Cottle said, a little breathlessly. She was no doctor, but she didn't like how he looked, not at all. He was paler than she liked too. He kept his own gun carefully pointed at the Cylon. " She was coming for me when Lt. Gaeta shot her, and then she shot him. Are you all right, son?"

Gaeta nodded as he carefully got up. " I'm bleeding but nothing's broken." He also looked unnaturally pale and nervous and that only ratcheted up Roslin's concern.

The Cylon looked at the three of them and then laughed. " If I wanted any of you dead, you would be already. As it happens, I came here for a reason." It gestured to Roslin, and she fought the urge to flinch backward. " Your people need you, Ms. Roslin. We all know that Dr. Baltar is a drunken figurehead of a president, and was for sometime before our arrival here. I've read through the records of his presidency… While he still is quite useful, we obviously would prefer a president that more of the people trusted."

It was galling to hear a Cylon say the things that she had been thinking since the invasion. Because Baltar was a drunk, and useless, and if she wanted, she could easily take the presidency. It would mean being the Cylons lackey however, and that was the last thing she wanted. " Considering that accepting your… offer means that I will need to betray my entire species, the answer is no."

The Cylon merely cocked her head. " Pity… you would really make this easier if you agreed. No? Then lets move on." It's eyes flicked onto Cottle. " Unfortunately for you, Dr. Cottle, you have nothing to offer. There are many of us trained in human physiology. You're not needed and frankly I doubt you'll live long enough to be of any real use." With that it dismissed him and turned it's gaze onto Gaeta, who was looking even more nervous.

" You surprise me on many levels," it said quietly. " I expected you to run, but running with the ex-president… You must have taken my warning seriously, that you wouldn't be welcome."

Gaeta nodded after a tense moment, and Roslin wondered about that. Cottle was convinced that something bigger than a mere Cylon invasion had prompted Gaeta to action that night. " It was my choice," he said softly, " and I've chosen my side."

It laughed. " Of course this is how you chose… If you only knew… Well, Mr. Gaeta, I'm going to explain something that might surprise you. You're not much of a liar and that's a design flaw, because you've never been good at it, or at realizing when people lie to you. So allow me to confess. I lied to you. You're not in trouble, you're not considered a risk, and if you come back with me, you'll be welcomed. More so if that baby is what I suspect."

Son of a bitch, Roslin thought as she shifted the baby slightly, she knows about the baby. Or suspects. It took a few more seconds for the implications of the Cylon's words to reach past her fear, and when it clicked it was brutal. She spun suddenly, and pointed her gun at Gaeta. " What the hell does she mean?"

Gaeta swiftly pointed his gun at her. " Don't shoot!"

No longer in her vision, the Cylon laughed again. " See how quickly they turn on you. I can imagine just how much they've relied on you to keep them alive and in seconds, you're nothing."

" You're a frakking Cylon!" Roslin snarled. She held the gun steady, and he did the same.

" I didn't know…" Gaeta said softly, " until five days ago and I have done nothing wrong…" Oddly his hands were shaking, and he was sweating like he had run a marathon.

" I'd believe him, if I were you," the Cylon said pleasantly, " I activated him myself. Mostly out of curiosity… Two won't be pleased but with only two human witnesses, the model is safe enough. But only if you come back to us, Felix. They'll never accept you now, they'll never trust you, and eventually they'll kill you out of fear no matter how much you do for them." Roslin heard the shot rather than saw, she didn't move her eyes off of Gaeta, who likewise didn't look. She heard a thump.

Cottle stepped into their peripheral vision, still holding his own gun. " I think we all heard enough of that. And I don't think we have time to have a fight so I want both of you to put the guns down." He waited.

" She'll kill me," Gaeta said.

" I will." Roslin said coldly. The problem was that she knew how fast Cylons could move so firing the gun meant dying herself. And the baby…which he knew about.

Unexpectedly, Cottle stepped between them, ruining her line of fire. " We may only have minutes until the Cylons are alerted to our location. We need to run." He looked at Gaeta. " I don't think these last five days have been one giant play to get Laura to go back, which means you might be a Cylon… but you're not with them. Am I right?"

Gaeta wavered. " Yes."

" He's a Cylon, they lie," Roslin snarled.

Cottle turned and frowned balefully at her. " For the love of all the gods, Laura, shut up. Felix, give me the gun. Laura can't shoot you unless she kills me to do it. Once he does that, Laura, you're going to hand me your gun. Then we're all going to grab our gear and move away from the dead Cylon as fast as we can, so we all don't get caught. Once we have put some distance away from here….. then we all will sit down and have a long talk about how things are going to go from here."

Gaeta handed him the gun. Roslin almost fired, but she knew Cottle was right. Still, she couldn't give up the gun.

Cottle took a step closer to her. " Listen to me, Laura," he whispered. " We can't kill him now and get out of this alive. As soon as that Cylon downloads what she knows, they will be all over here. If we kill him now, he reincarnates, and we get killed. We can kill him later when **we're** safe, understand?"

And that cut through her panic. Reluctantly, she gave Cottle the gun. "Only until we're safe and then we take care of it."


	11. Murder and Cylon Morality

He wondered if either of them understood that he could hear them whispering. It wasn't hard. He'd always had good hearing, better now that… that he was activated. Despite himself, Gaeta shuddered. He **was** a Cylon… and as much as he thought Laura Roslin was being unfair, it didn't change the fact that he was the enemy. He didn't plan any harm, he didn't want any harm, but he couldn't blame either Roslin or Cottle for not believing him.

He figured his obligation to ex-President Roslin ended the second she said that she'd kill him. He had taken an oath to protect civilian life, one he took seriously despite the reality that oppressed him. He **thought** he had taken that oath, and he wasn't ready to throw it away. His intent, his wish, was to protect. It was how he thought, how he always had thought, and he saw no reason to change that because of… an unpleasant reality. Just because he was a Cylon, it was no reason to disregard everything he had ever valued. So he had helped Dr. Cottle and Laura Roslin, despite that it had been unpleasant. It wasn't even truly obligatory, he was a discharged veteran, just a reservist with no more obligation to the civilian population than any civilian had.

By any reasonable standard, he thought darkly as he trudged ahead of the two others, I haven't done anything wrong. He let that roll around in his mind for a few moments, and despite himself, he smiled. I am being perfectly ridiculous, he though with no small amount of amusement. I am a Cylon mentally debating the ethics of my actions as a discharged human military officer to the civilian population. Legally, I'm not even alive under colonial law. Machines can't take oaths, and they can't be held to them. Under human law, my killing someone is the moral equivalent of someone getting killed in a Viper crash. A tragic accident, a mishandling of touchy equipment. He almost laughed.

Except that if he did laugh, or explain how amusing it was, at least one of his companions would cheerfully mention how she could put a bullet in his head and not even be charged with discharging a weapon into sensitive equipment. That thought killed his mood, which had not been a good mood to begin with. He had some ugly choices to make.

Cottle understood it, he thought. He suspected that Jack Cottle would have cheerfully looked the other way if he had sprinted off on a run of escape. He even suspected that had it just been the two of them, Cottle might have been convinced to keep his secret… at least until the fleet returned to rescue the survivors. The human survivors. Cottle was sympathetic but not insane. It would have been a chance though.

Laura Roslin was not sympathetic. He could still hear her berating Cottle in what she thought was a hushed voice that they needed to take the opportunity to shoot him in the back while they could. He wanted to say something nasty, because he **was** a person and he didn't want to be executed, and listening to her just made him want to point out how convenient for **him** it was if she ended up dead.

Because that was how his choices were shaking out. He could be killed, temporarily anyway, and in the Cylon world, he faced the unpleasant choices of being boxed, or of switching sides and… and being a Cylon. Or Roslin and Cottle could let him go, and he would remain in the wilderness of New Caprica. The plus to that plan was that no one got killed. The minuses began with how unlikely it was that Cottle and Roslin would agree, and with how physically unpleasant it was on New Caprica. The next choice was too ridiculous to think about but he did, just to be thorough. Roslin and Cottle could agree not to tell, and he would, as his side of the deal, also keep his mouth shut and would continue to be the helpful camp leader he had been. They could all just… pretend he was the same Felix Gaeta he had always been. He **liked** that choice, he really did. It just wasn't going to happen.

He sighed, and tried to shake off the pain in his throbbing leg. That left one other choice, one that he didn't like but couldn't help thinking about. He'd gone around it a few times, because it was where he started to question how much duty he still owed the human race in general, and Laura Roslin in particular.

He could kill them both. It wouldn't be hard. Even with the still bleeding wound in his leg, he knew if he tried, he could be on top of Cottle in seconds. Cottle was old, and slow, and deep down he thought the older man still wanted to trust him. Once he had the man down, he'd get one of the guns and simply open fire. Then… then he could the resistance. No one would ever question his story. It was really that simple.

Except that he couldn't quite bring himself to commit cold blooded murder. It was wrong. I'm a Cylon, he thought, but that doesn't mean I have to be a murderer. Even though it meant his options on staying alive and not becoming a cheerful member of the new regime were very low, he knew he couldn't do it. It was wrong. And he had taken an oath.

At least he thought he had. And if it was real or just an implanted memory… he didn't care anymore. I know it's true, he decided forcefully, and I won't murder civilians in order to survive. It's against the oath, and if he was going to be a naïve soon to be dead Cylon, at least he would be an honorable one that didn't murder nearly defenseless humans.

And if he was going to continue the trend of being too honest for his own good, he figured that he might as well be totally honest. He turned around, careful to not put extra pressure on his injured leg. " I can hear you," he said to his trailing companions. He was not surprised to see them both look startled. " I am pretty certain from watching Specialist Cally gun down Boomer that yes, a well aimed bullet to my head **will** solve your problem, Ms. Roslin. In fact, I am pretty sure you could get away with a few rounds to my chest in a pinch. I do need to sleep so killing me while I sleep might have been a really good idea except that I'm pretty certain that the Cylon in the party has heard you debate it for the last hour."

Roslin frowned darkly. After a moment Cottle laughed. " I think we've put enough distance between us and the… other Cylon. I sure am not hiking another twenty miles, not with the sun going down. I am certain that the baby is hungry again, and I'm hungry. I know you're hungry, Laura, and tired, and what the hell, you look tired Mr. Gaeta."

" I am tired," Gaeta grumbled as he dropped his heavy rucksack. In fact, he hadn't felt so tired in a long time. They had been moving fast, there was a real concern that Six would send Centurions once she reincarnated. Fear definitely had kept things moving but as the day had gone on, he had been more and more grateful for the rest stops. He sat down heavily on the rucksack. The truth was, he didn't feel well. His leg hurt, and he had hardly slept the last few nights. Maybe they will shoot me, he thought tiredly, that has its pluses. I bet the Cylons have clean beds.

" Felix?" He opened his eyes when he felt the barrel of a hand gun tap his shoulder. Cottle looked at him worriedly. " Is your leg still bleeding?"

He almost snapped at the man but held off. Cottle had insisted on bandaging his wound, which was better than he had any right to expect, considering the situation. " I don't think it stopped… and yes it hurts."

" Just turn the pain off," Roslin muttered as she started to spread out a blanket for the baby to lie on.

He pulled himself upright, wincing at the sudden dizzy sensation. " If I knew how," he said through gritted teeth as Cottle undid the bandage, " I would. But I don't know how… Dammit!"

"Dammit!" Cottle echoed. He pressed his hands down on the wound, hard enough to make Gaeta yelp with pain. " Laura, get my bag now." He looked up intently. " There's a problem, Mr. Gaeta. You weren't bleeding this much earlier today." He deftly pulled off Gaeta's boot, revealing a soaked bloody sock and equally soaked bandages. " The bullet shifted with the walking, and nicked something." More to himself he added, " She wasn't trying to kill you…"

The problem with being a clueless Cylon, Felix Gaeta thought as his vision slowly dimmed into blackness, was that it had all the downsides and none of the perks.


	12. Athena Will Strike A Liar Down

"Laura," Cottle said gently, " I need my bag." He wanted to kick himself, and kick Felix Gaeta, even though he could hardly blame the man for not wanting to make a fuss. There was a lot of blood. A human being needed a certain volume to stay alive, and he was pretty certain that the rule held for Cylons. " There's old fashioned sutures and a surgical kit. I need to get the bleeding to stop or else he's going to be dead in a few hours."

Roslin didn't move. " Jack… is that such a terrible thing?" She said it calmly, and without the earlier heat of anger. She picked up his bag and brought it over, setting it down in front of him. Her eyes were filled with grim concern. She put her hand on top of his. " I know this is hard… but Jack, he's not a human being. He is dangerous to us."

She was calmer. That was good, because he had been trying for most of the day to talk some sense into her, and she hadn't been listening. There were good reasons to keep Felix Gaeta alive, not the least of which was Cottle's feeling that something… different was going on. He only had his memories of Sharon Valerii in her various incarnations to work with, but it was different. Gaeta was different from Sharon, the first Sharon, and the second.

But that was a discussion that could wait until Laura was less rabid on the topic of killing. There were more reasonable and rational reasons to keep Gaeta alive, and she was letting her anger and fear rule her thinking. He took his bag from her and began to work on the wounded man. " Let's ignore the fact that he hasn't tried to kill us, and just talk this out for a moment. If he dies, we need to be running, because I don't know how they transfer their consciousness, but they do it, and if we kill him, he has every reason to tell his friends where we are. You're exhausted, and I am exhausted and neither of us is going to run far. If we run, we have to leave the majority of our survival gear because neither of us can carry it. We'll be caught within days, if we don't die from exposure. We can't afford to kill him or to let him die. Not tonight. That's the biggest reason. Do you get it?"

She nodded after a long moment. " I get it. But we have to talk about it."

He shushed her with a hand motion. " I need water to clean the wound." Which was dirty and wet from when they had crossed a stream and he had to wonder if Gaeta knew something he didn't, because what he knew was that if Gaeta was human, he was going to be lucky to not lose his damn leg to an infection. New Caprica wasn't quite a teeming cesspit of disease, but he generally recommended that wounds be kept clean and dry.

But that was a problem for later. As he peered at the wound, he was beginning to realize that the female Cylon had been quite deliberate. The bullet had lodged in the leg muscle, he wasn't a poor enough doctor to have missed that, but the bullet had fragmented by design and left some tiny metallic shards that had spent the day turning Gaeta's wound into a mess. Not impossible to fix, he thought, but cleverly designed to take Gaeta down within a short time frame. The Cylon was expecting Gaeta to run and had shot him to make retrieval easier. That meant her story, that she was there to get Laura and that Gaeta was simply a sideline project of hers, was probably true. It went along with what Gaeta had said, that he hadn't known until the invasion.

Finally, he had it completely sewn up. " Ok," he said, looking up. " I'm done." He wasn't surprised to see it was almost dark. Roslin was feeding the baby and had spent her time setting up the camp. He appreciated it. He was dead tired and he hadn't liked how… weak in the chest he had felt during the earlier confrontation, and since then.

Roslin looked at him worriedly. " I didn't start a fire… It seems too likely that they'll be looking for us. We've still got some self heating rations. You look like you could use something warm to eat."

She handed him a packet of food, which he accepted gratefully. " We have to talk, Jack."

" Laura," he sighed. " He may not live out the night. We can wait until tomorrow to resume the debate."

" That's… not what I was going to say. Not exactly." She carefully set the baby down on the bedding laid out. " How soon will he be able to travel?"

That was a good question, although he sensed that it was leading down a similar path. " If he hasn't bled out past the point of return, if he was human, we would be stuck here for at least the next three days, for just the blood loss. I think they recover faster, but it's not magic. Sharon recovered pretty quickly from giving birth, faster than a human would have… What are you getting at, Laura?"

" You don't want to kill him." He knew that tone. He almost marveled at her ability to assume command of a situation. She went from bedraggled to coldly beautiful with just a tightening of her eyes. " You're a doctor, and you're not the bastard you pretend to be and most of all you want to be fair. Mr. Gaeta hasn't tried to kill us, and he has been helping us and it's unfair to kill him."

" It also gives us away," Cottle added gently. " Laura, think about what that other Cylon said… They both said that he didn't know until five days ago that he was one of them. What if he **is** on our side?" That was the question he had been wrestling with all day.

Roslin shook her head. " We can't afford to take that chance. Not now."

"So what are you proposing, if it's not killing him while he's unconscious?" Because, Cottle realized, she was proposing something.

" We can wake him up and ask him to tell us everything he knows. In the morning, you and I pack our gear and go." Roslin's eyes narrowed. " You said he won't be able to walk for a few days."

" You want to leave a wounded man in the woods by himself?" It was almost as appalling as killing Gaeta. The problem… was that it wasn't a bad idea.

"No, Jack, I want to leave a wounded Cylon in the woods." Roslin glared at Gaeta's unconscious body. " He's one of them, Jack. We don't owe him one shred of mercy."

Cottle opened his mouth to protest, and then stopped. He disagreed with her on that. He was quite certain that they would be dead several times over if Felix Gaeta had actively been working against them. Arguing that point was not going to help anyone, if anything it was going to push Roslin back to her original proposition.

And he didn't relish watching her put Gaeta down like one did a rabid dog.

She was grateful to Jack Cottle, she really was. He was right. Killing the Cylon would just bring down more Cylons on them. It would also create a rift between her and Jack, and she couldn't afford that. She needed Jack. If she pushed too hard, he might completely take the Cylon's side. She wasn't surprised that he was sympathetic to Gaeta.

She wasn't unmindful of that. Jack was a doctor, a man who had spent his life caring for the sick and injured. His gruff persona was an act, anyone who spent time with him knew that underneath the nasty exterior was a genuinely caring man. He wasn't going to like executing anyone, let alone Gaeta who outwardly had always been a basically good person.

" What's wrong?" she asked as Cottle leaned over Gaeta. Something was wrong, that was obvious from Cottle's expression.

Cottle looked at her. " He's running a fever. They do get sick. Valerii had the flu that one time. He was shot, and the wound got dirty… I'm not surprised."

" We don't have any antibiotics. There's nothing you can do for him." She tried not to sound harsh. It was simply true. If Gaeta…. The Cylon… was sick, then he was going to be sick regardless. The smart thing was still to leave him. If he was truly on their side, he would accept the risk that waiting for a sick man to get better poised to them.

" You could sound a little less happy about it," Cottle said harshly. He tapped Gaeta's face, trying to arouse the man. It was worrisome, Roslin realized. Gaeta had not awakened during the night. If he was really sick, then Cottle wouldn't want to leave. She had spent a mostly sleepless night considering how to best get Cottle to do what she wanted. It wasn't the first time that she had wished that Billy Keikeya was still alive. It wasn't until after he had died that she had realized just how much she had leaned on him, and how much she had cherished his gentle wit. Billy would have known how to handle the situation. But then, Billy never would have stood by her over the election.

Cottle finally resorted to shaking Gaeta. " Wake up, dammit! We have got to talk." Finally Gaeta started to come around.

" What's… what's going on?" Gaeta asked hesitantly. He did look sick, Roslin thought. His eyes didn't seem to focus. Good, she thought darkly, a sick Cylon was less likely to lie.

" We have some questions," Cottle said easily. " Don't worry. We're not going to kill you, but you do need to answer our questions."

She would have preferred to be the one asking the questions, but truth be told, she also didn't have the patience to not grab the Cylon by it's wounded leg and squeeze until it told the truth.

" When that Cylon said she had activated you, six days ago," Cottle said softly, " was that true?"

" Yes… she said I wasn't supposed to be activated, but she did it anyway. To see what would happen." Gaeta paused, and looked at Cottle. " I didn't know… She said that the Cylons… the other Cylons didn't trust sleeper agents, that they were going to box me if I didn't just go along with everything."

" Box you?" Roslin suspected it didn't mean fighting. That was… intriguing. That meant the Cylons did have a structure in place to deal with problems. That meant that they had problems.

" They… she said they would download my consciousness into a closed computer system." There was real fear in his eyes. For a moment, she allowed herself to consider it, and it was an awful fate.

" Why? What makes you dangerous to them?" Roslin asked quickly.

" I don't know…" Gaeta said. " I think… I think they had problems because of the other sleeper agents…. She said I'd been under too long… I'd be too difficult…."

" She also said she lied to you," Cottle said after a moment.

" I don't know," Gaeta said. He closed his eyes. " She lies a lot."

" Are you lying?" Roslin asked, waving Cottle quiet. Even she could tell that they were seconds from losing Gaeta to unconsciousness.

" No…" His voice faded off. " I've never been very good at it. An officer of the fleet does not… does not lie, cheat or steal… Athena will strike a liar down…."

Cottle looked up at her. " Athena will strike a liar down… It's good to know that the Cylons know the scripture." He was getting angry again, and she knew it had to be nipped in the bud.

" He's a sleeper agent, Jack. They know our religion better than we do. And they do lie." She gestured to the packed bags. " We need to go. We're giving him a chance. You said that they're stronger and more healthy. We're leaving the supplies we can't carry… We have to keep Isis from the Cylons. If we stay here and he dies, we're in the same position as if we killed him. We have to go." She hesitated. What she was about to say was a bit of a cheap shot. " If he's on our side, then he wouldn't want us to get captured."

Cottle rolled his eyes at her. " Laura… you're justifying leaving a sick man to die alone in the woods."

" It's a sick Cylon," she corrected sweetly.

" And we're only going to last a few more days on our own without him," Cottle said as he rose to his feet.

She shrugged. " I won't be their tool, and deep down neither will you. And we both know that Isis has to be kept from the Cylons. Even if it means all three of us die."

" All four of us," Cottle corrected. " Are you sure we shouldn't just shoot Felix in the head, then Isis, and then each other? It'd be quicker."

" We might find other people," she said after a moment. " But it's good to know our options. I won't be their tool, Jack." She looked away, out over the misty forest. " I mean it, Jack. You know, Athena will strike a liar down."


	13. A Tool That Thinks

The sensation that brought him back to awareness was raging thirst. Felix Gaeta opened his eyes and blinked at the waning sunlight. His tongue felt like a cinder. His clothes were clammy and wet, and he had the distinct feeling that he had been sicker than he had ever been before. More sick than a human could get, let alone survive, and all he wanted to do was drink water and then go back to sleep.

But it was unnaturally silent. He knew Cottle, knew him well to know that something was wrong if the older man wasn't at his side asking harsh questions about his health. Harsh, but concerned, that was Dr. Jack Cottle. He was sick, maybe not as badly as he thought, but sick enough that Cottle should have been at his side, telling him to drink something.

Instead there was quiet. He rolled onto his side and raised his head. The camp, if a clearing in the woods with a bedraggled lean-to could be called a camp, was empty except for some scattered gear. No one was there.

It made sense. Logically, it made perfect sense. Killing him was simply too risky. Roslin was angry and refusing to give him a chance, but she was no fool. She didn't trust him and if he died she had no way of preventing him from telling their position. He wasn't sure that he could prevent it, either. He **had** been ill, seriously ill if how wretched he felt was an indicator. The smart thing was to leave him and hope that they could put some distance between them before he died.

Of course, it also ensured that Roslin and Cottle would probably be dead in days, but Gaeta suspected that it might be part of the plan. The child was important and couldn't be allowed to fall into Cylon hands. Six only suspected, he was certain of that. It was suspicious that they were traveling with a child, but without a physical exam the Cylons could never be certain that the child was a hybrid. If the child died… The truth would never be discovered, only suspected. And suspicion was much different than truth.

But that was not the pressing concern. He needed water, and there was a canteen just within reach. A canteen with medical supplies neatly stacked, bandages mostly, but he really didn't care about that, not when he felt dizzy from thirst. He grabbed the canteen and drank. It made him feel better, much better. Better than he should feel, but he wasn't going to knock the first positive thing he'd noticed about being a Cylon. A memory tickled the edge of his awareness, Cottle saying something about blood loss and infection. The wound had been infected, but when he looked at it, it didn't seem as inflamed as it should have, considering how he badly he felt.

He finished off the water, and wished there was more, but he didn't quite feel well enough to get up off the ground. Not yet. Instead, he looked over the remains of the camp. There was some food, not a lot, and his belongings. The baby's things were gone, and they had left his backpack. Which surprised him only for a moment. He had been carrying the bulk of the gear because he could, and because it spared Cottle from the task. Laura Roslin had done more than her fair share, carrying the baby and her own supplies, but there was no way that she and Cottle could have taken more than they were already carrying. Which explained why food had been left behind. It wasn't likely to have been mercy.

They were embracing death in other words. They had to realize it. Cottle certainly had from day one. Cottle was a realist. And Laura Roslin… Gaeta shook his head. The real problem was that he didn't think that she was a bad person. She was afraid, and not just for herself, but for all of humanity. She was willing to die rather than be captured and used. He could respect that. He could understand that.

Because he had the distinct impression that Six had been merrily using him for her own twisted uses and he was sick of being a tool. She had lied to him and while he was more and more certain that she would be in serious trouble if what she had done was discovered…. He would be in trouble too. In trouble because of Six.

And yet… He finally had what he had wanted seven days earlier. He was alone, in the woods. By leaving him in the woods to die, the humans had certainly made their decision about him. He doubted the Cylons would look very hard for him. New Caprica was unpleasant but livable and it wasn't like he could build a ship and escape on his own. They knew he would either die or return, return to their society, and it wasn't like he could truly die and not end up back in the Cylon fold. There didn't seem to be any way out, none that he could think of, unless he could somehow get off the planet and as far away from other Cylons as he could. And even that might not work.

Gaeta began to gather up the gear, carefully repacking it. They had left water purifying tablets, which was starting to not surprise him as he refilled the canteen and drank more water. Cottle had left bandages with written instructions on taking care of the wound… and a gun underneath the rucksack.

He smiled as he picked up the weapon. Between that and the water, it was obvious that at least one member of their group trusted him. Cottle, of course. Cottle trusted him. Hadn't wanted to leave him, if the fever hadn't warped his memory completely.

He got more water from the stream and then grabbed one of the remaining packets of rations. He wasn't hungry, he still felt sick, but not eating was a good way to stay sick. He could feel the sickness leaving him. Gaeta drank more water and nibbled on a ration bar. Suddenly his hunger returned in a mad rush. Cold rations had never tasted so good and he helped himself to another, realizing that his body was craving energy, and food, that he hadn't really been eating at all for the last six days. A few bites here and there, he had felt the difference, that he didn't need as much. Now he was ravenous. Even a Cylon needed to eat.

I don't owe anyone anything, Gaeta thought as he munched on another ration bar. I did everything I was supposed to, everything I was asked. There's no obligation left. They left me, I didn't leave them. And it wasn't like the Cylons would turn him away. He was one of them. He knew things, things about Six for starters, but also about humans and how they thought.

Of course… That meant being a Cylon. He was a Cylon. Maybe it was time he stopped trying to deny that. After a long moment, Gaeta put down the ration bar. He'd be dead if he wasn't a Cylon. At the same time, it wasn't as though the Cylons had… had been all that pleasant to him. If he was one of them, why did they treat him like a tool? An unused tool that was going to be snickered at and secretly mocked because it didn't even know it was a tool.

It would be much easier if he was just an unaware tool. Tools didn't worry about their friends that were still on the Pegasus and Galactica. Tools didn't have friends. Tools didn't care about anything. He wished that he didn't care about anything, that he could just turn it all off, but that simply wasn't happening.

He was never going to be a very good Cylon, he sensed that. Six was right, he had been human too long. He could fit in, he suspected that Cylon society was pretty much about following the rules, and following orders. He'd always liked rules and orders. But… it was never going to feel right. He would be a traitor, disloyal to everything he had believed in, but if he was a Cylon, did any of that really matter? His friends would never be his friends again. Once they found out, he would be killed. They might feel bad afterward, but he'd be killed no matter how hard he tried to help them.

So why was he considering finding the human resistance on his own? Worse, why was he seriously considering tracking down Cottle and Roslin in order to make sure they didn't get killed? Gaeta considered the question carefully as he repacked all the gear. Over the fleet officer's oath? He almost laughed. After watching his fellow officers commit mutiny, plot murder, commit election fraud and a myriad of lesser crimes, it was finally becoming clear that he was about the only one left in the fleet who even cared about the oath. And he was a Cylon. Roslin certainly wouldn't welcome his presence. So why was he even considering looking for the people who had left him to die in the woods?

Because the people needed Laura Roslin and Dr. Jack Cottle. When the humans escaped New Caprica, and they would escape, they would need a doctor and a leader. Six was still looking for all them, and she did need Laura Roslin to help pacify the masses. It would be a devastating blow to humanity if Roslin embraced the takeover, and he had no doubt that the Cylons had ways to make that happen. But most importantly, they had the child. The hybrid child. He wasn't much of a Cylon, not at all, but he knew the child was important. The Cylons, the **other** Cylons could not be allowed to have access to the child. If they knew for certain that the child existed… Humanity would be enslaved.

And deep down, he didn't want to be a slave master. Laura Roslin might thank him for helping her by putting a bullet in his head, but until that time came, he would not betray the only side he'd sworn to serve.


	14. A New Plan

Laura Roslin set down the baby and the accompanying carrier with a stifled groan. Cottle caught it, but said nothing. He was carrying what remained of their gear and his back and knees were barely holding on. It wasn't going to work, he knew that and he suspected Laura knew it too.

They were moving too slow. That was the first problem. He didn't think Gaeta would intentionally rat them out to the other Cylons if he was found… or if he died and was reincarnated. He just wasn't sure if Gaeta had a choice in the matter. That meant they had to move away from where they had left Gaeta as fast as possible. Then there was the added problem of the blonde Cylon. He could justify not worrying about Gaeta, although that had certain risks, but the blonde Cylon, Shelly Godfrey….

She was dangerous. She wasn't likely to be swayed by her fond memories of living among humans. She was looking for Laura, and she wasn't likely to give up. Unlike Gaeta, she had power in the Cylon world. She could send out Centurions to hunt them. They simply couldn't move fast enough to outrun a Cylon search party. After two days alone in the woods without a younger companion to pick up the load, he knew they had hardly moved at all.

Worse, it wasn't like they were going anywhere. They had a map, but nowhere to go. The original plan had been to look for other people. He knew, from some quick conversations with a few of the pilots who had been gather gear to run, that there was a general rendezvous for the resistance in the direction they were heading. If the pilots hadn't been captured or killed. There was no way to know.

He just knew they weren't going to make it much longer. Not without help, and he had no idea where that help was coming from. Worse, he and Laura were barely speaking. She thought he was being too soft, and he thought she was ruining their chances. Gaeta was a Cylon and that made him dangerous, but Cottle hadn't liked abandoning him like a sick dog in the woods. Sure, the reality was that Gaeta would probably shake it off and be fine… They were healthier and had better immune systems and Gaeta had been turning the corner as they had left him. Gaeta had been a patient and it was against the oath to leave him for dead.

Which Laura didn't get. To her, it was a Cylon and they were just things. Leaving Gaeta in the woods was like leaving a piece of untrustworthy gear behind. It made Cottle angry. It was a wasted opportunity. He had a feeling that Gaeta, for some bizarre reason, wanted to be anything but a Cylon. Why not use that, take advantage of that? A Cylon that wanted to be human was a gift. At the very least, they could have used him to get them to safety.

He helped Roslin set up their evening camp. She was quiet, much as she had been all day. Resigned, he thought. Resigned to the fact that within the next few days she was going to need to put a pistol to the baby's head and pull the trigger, rather than let the baby die of exposure and starvation. It was coming. They were running out of food. They had left rations with Gaeta because they simply couldn't carry more, and the baby wasn't going to be able to eat ration bars anyway.

Not that he worried much. His chest hurt. It had been hurting for days, and he knew what palpitations meant. It was just a matter of time before the heart attack came, and he wasn't sure if he could survive it. He didn't want to die, he had an odd desire to see how it all came out. " I'm going to fill up the canteens," he said to Roslin.

She merely nodded, her mind was on something else, he could tell. Regret over the situation, most likely. He didn't envy her in the slightest. Politics made for regrets, no matter how successful someone was, and the reality was that Roslin had reason to regret things. He had warned her that Baltar was a more formidable political foe than he looked, and he knew he hadn't been the only one. And he was inclined to agree with Felix Gaeta on one point. Even if Felix had kept his mouth shut, Laura would have been caught and the longer the interval between the election and getting found out, the uglier and more dangerous it would have been. Granted, things were bad, terrible now, but if Laura had stolen the election and been caught at a later date, she wouldn't have retained any good will from the people.

He went down to the flowing river and began filling the canteens. He didn't hear anything, until Felix Gaeta spoke to him.

"You should be more careful, Dr. Cottle," he heard from behind. " There's a lot of scary things out here."

Cottle carefully turned around. He had left a gun with Gaeta. To be fair, and because… if no one ever even tried trusting a Cylon, then the Cylons were right to be afraid of humans. It was foolish and stupid but it wasn't like he thought he was going live much longer regardless of what Gaeta did. Gaeta did have the gun but it was neatly tucked into his belt. Gaeta was also carrying the gear they had left behind and looked tired but well.

" How do I know you're Felix Gaeta, and not some other Cylon?" Cottle asked after a moment.

Gaeta rolled up his pantleg and showed Cottle the wound he had received, still neatly stitched. " Don't worry… I don't plan anything." He gestured nervously in the direction of the campsite. " I'm not welcome, I get that, and I don't want to get killed. I know too much. But I had to warn you. You're being tracked. I saw Cylon Centurions looking… And I saw Six… the blonde Cylon," he added at Cottle's quizzical look.

But that wasn't what Cottle was curious about. If Gaeta knew that they were being tracked, it had to be in part because he was following them. The question was why. Gaeta seemed to understand, at least on the surface, that he wasn't human. It did him no good to even attempt to ingratiate himself. If for some reason Roslin didn't kill him, if they somehow got off New Caprica and back to the fleet, Gaeta would find himself locked in a cell, vilified by people who used to be his friends.

"There's nothing we can do," Cottle said after a moment. Gaeta's personal choices intrigued him, he was enough of a closet intellectual for that, but survival was the important issue. " You followed us, you know how fast we're moving." He didn't feel bad admitting that. Gaeta was pretty sharp, and he knew how fast they could move. He wasn't giving away tactical information to the enemy.

He wasn't sure Gaeta was the enemy.

Gaeta shook his head. " No, you can't. But I went ahead. There's people to the west. A bunch of pilots from the Galactica, and deck crew. I counted about twenty. They're about twenty five miles away. If you keep moving in the same direction, I can run ahead and tell them where you are. I would even lead them back to you… if I could get some guarantee that I wouldn't be shot."

Also interesting. " I don't know," he said, being honest. A thought struck him. " If they're twenty five miles away…. How did you find them and get back here?"

Gaeta looked down at his feet. A red blush seemed to creep around his ears. " I'm faster and stronger and I don't need to eat or sleep as much."

"All right." Cottle considered his next question carefully. " Why are you doing this, Felix? I don't think there's a thing you can do that would stop Laura Roslin or Bill Adama from putting a bullet in your head as soon as there's an opportunity. You're smarter than that." He was more than curious, he was worried. Gaeta was not behaving the way he was supposed to. On the one hand, Cottle had no intention of complaining that the Cylon seemingly wanted to help them. At the same time, he just didn't understand why. There was no way that Gaeta was going to earn goodwill.

Gaeta kept looking at his feet. Finally he said softly, " Do you think this has been easy? Everything I know is a lie. I don't know anything about myself anymore. I thought I was an officer, sworn to protect the human race… and I'm not, and that was everything to me. No matter what I do, I can't have that back. So I'm a Cylon, but they weren't planning on using me because they don't trust sleeper agents. I said I would help you and Ms. Roslin find help, and I will. After that, I don't know."

" Because you're a man of your word? Doing your sworn duty?" Cottle wondered about that. Six had come right and said that Gaeta wasn't much of a liar, that it was a design flaw. He wondered if all Cylons had ingrained personality quirks. Both of the Sharon Valerii Cylons had been prone to flighty emotionalism, no matter what the circumstance. Six, from what he knew of the Shellie Godfrey incident, and of the Cylon kept on the Pegasus, tended to throw herself around in a sexual manner, even when it wasn't appropriate. Perhaps, Cottle mused as he looked at Gaeta's stricken face, he's the good little soldier model. Talented, loyal, and follows the rules, that was Lt. Felix Gaeta. It had been well known on the Galactica that Gaeta was efficient, clever, and meticulous. Meticulous about his appearance, about his reports, about his work… Cottle had suspected that the lieutenant was sub-clinically obsessive compulsive more than once. So had Bill Adama, although Bill had been more concerned with making his tactical officer a more creative thinker, and to a point, that had happened. Gaeta had been loyal, trustworthy and dedicated… dedicated to saving humanity. Cottle wondered if it took more than just pressing the on switch to make Gaeta change sides. If Six had been telling the truth, she had activated Gaeta just to see what would happen, and Gaeta was reverting to what he knew best. Being a loyal, trustworthy officer dedicated to saving humanity. No doubt, if the Cylons had activated him for a reason, they would have spent some time presenting their case to him, convincing him to change loyalties. Because of the design flaw of loyalty and honesty.

Gaeta nodded to his question, looking embarrassed.

Interesting, Cottle thought. But interesting theory that it was, it wasn't going to convince Roslin to not blow the whistle on Gaeta. It was worth testing though. " Felix," he said softly, " did it ever occur to you that the smartest thing you could do to protect yourself is to kill me and Laura and join those pilots yourself? If you wanted to keep on being Felix Gaeta the human being, that is."

" Yes," Gaeta said coolly. There was a sudden cold flash in the man's eyes. Cottle had seen it before, in the CIC, in council meetings, in the sewer tunnel when Teppler was trying to intimidate him. When Gaeta was making cool, logical decisions that might be unpleasant. Gaeta eyed him carefully. " I considered that. But it is murder." He smiled slightly. " Ultimately it would make my arguing that I never betrayed humanity a little… awkward. At best." He sighed. " And I would be found out eventually, even if you and Ms. Roslin agreed to not say anything. Or if you were dead, and aside from it being murder, killing you serves no purpose and just makes me look worse. So you're safe from me. But you're not safe from Six. I could probably slip away from a rescue party so as long as you stay on the same path, you and Ms. Roslin will be with a safer group by tomorrow night. Maybe the next day if they're slow, but they looked like they were in good shape." His eyes darted nervously to the woods that led back to where Laura and the baby were. " I have to go…."

Cottle watched him slip into the forest and then sighed. He had a feeling he was right, that Gaeta was an unused cog in the Cylon machine. Without their influence, Gaeta was free to establish whatever moral code he wanted, and he was reverting to what he knew best, being trustworthy, honest, and loyal Felix Gaeta.

Which made it a pity that they couldn't afford the risk studying him would bring. Even more a pity, he was going to save Laura Roslin knowing full well that he was probably going to be killed doing it… because of a programming quirk. He wondered if Gaeta could turn that off.

Cottle shrugged to himself as he picked up the canteens. The important thing was that within a day or two, he could hand off the burden he had taken on, and have a massive coronary with a clear conscience.

As long as Six didn't find them first, and that thought was enough to keep his heart racing all the way back to camp.


	15. Unpleasant Realities

Oh frak no, Laura Roslin thought when she saw Jack Cottle clutch his chest and drop to his knees. In an instant, she was at his side. "Is it your heart?"

A stupid question. Of course it was his heart. He wasn't a young man, and he had smoked for his entire life. He wasn't in terrible health, but he had been pushed harder, physically and mentally, than he had in years. There was no reason to guess.

Cottle took a deep, gulping breath. " It's not… it's not too bad. I can't… catch my breath."

" All right…" She desperately tried to think of what to do. If it was mild, he might live, but he needed to stay calm. He needed to rest. She put her arm around his waist and pulled him to his feet. They were in a relatively clear part of the woods, and for a change it wasn't raining or freezing. " I'm going to take you to a spot under those trees, and you're going to lie down. I'll get you some water… Do you have any aspirin?"

"That's an old wive's tale…." Cottle muttered. " And no… the aspirin has been gone for months…."

She carefully set him down in the shade of a tree and began loosening his jacket. She didn't know why, she had always seen it done on the medical vids. Then she held up a canteen to his lips.

He pushed it away. " Laura…take the baby. Keep moving."

"No." She understood his point. She couldn't carry him. At the same time, it wasn't as though she had anywhere to go. She could take Isis and keep walking and in two days she would be facing the same eventuality. Except that she would be alone. " I'm going to stay. You just need to rest for a little."

He chuckled painfully. " Laura, I'm having a heart attack… I can't sleep on it. You need to keep going, and keep heading west. There are people there."

She set the baby down. " You don't know that." It was early to stop, but there was no choice. " We'll stay here until you feel better."

"You'll be caught if you stay here, Laura." He took a deep breath, and winced. " I know that there are people in the west."

He believed it, she could see it in his eyes. She knew Jack Cottle, and he wasn't lying to her. He knew something. Something she wouldn't really like, if she wasn't misreading his expression. Maybe she was. He was having a heart attack after all.

"Jack, how do you know that?" She had a very good idea how he knew that but she kept her anger, and her suspicion, out of her voice.

He eyed her, and then sighed. " Gaeta told me. And don't look at me like that…." He winced. " Put aside your hatred for just a minute, dammit. Fine, he's a Cylon. He could have killed us both, and didn't, and still hasn't, even though we did a pretty inhumane thing to him. You did think about it, didn't you? It wasn't **luck** that kept us alive, it's that he didn't want to kill us."

If he wasn't having a heart attack, Roslin was pretty sure she would have slapped his face. Jack Cottle was a smart man but underneath his gruff exterior, he was sentimental. "Jack, they're designed to be deceptive. His mission was to deceive us and stay with us and help them track us." There were flaws to that idea, she couldn't deny that as a plan it was a damn convoluted one, and it didn't really make much sense, but the important point was that Gaeta was a Cylon. Cylons lie.

That was a pretty basic truth about Cylons.

Cottle shook his head. " I don't think he was lying, but that doesn't matter in the slightest." He took a deep breath and then let it out. " I can't go anywhere. You can't stay here. You know we're being tracked. If you stay here with me, you will be caught and most likely used as a Cylon mouthpiece for their regime. Think about what they would need to do to you to make you be their spokesperson. I doubt… that it would be pleasant. You have to keep moving."

" It's not as though I'm that much faster without you," she said after a moment. She wasn't. Isis wasn't a huge baby, but carrying her in the baby backpack was adding forty pounds on before she even started with supplies. Forty pounds that periodically kicked her in the ribs.

"Leave Isis with me. Go as fast as possible. Gaeta said we would have met up with this other group by tonight." He grimaced in pain. " Don't look at me like that. If he's lying then you're dead. You're dead if you stay here, dead or worse. The only scenario where you come out alive is if Gaeta was telling the truth. I think he was." He paused. " Leave Isis here, and leave me a gun. For just in case."

The problem was that Cottle was right. There was no path that didn't lead to death. On the other hand, if Gaeta had been telling the truth, then more people were close by. It was a chance. Not much of a chance, and if the Cylons were tracking them, she knew she was leaving Jack to die. And leaving Jack with the baby was tantamount to asking him to kill Isis if it came to that.

It would if she didn't find anyone.

" I can't leave you here," she said after a moment. " I can't." There was a line, she realized. She could order a Cylon to be thrown out an airlock, she could leave one to die in the wilderness. She could even walk away from the society she had sworn to protect, because she knew that if she stayed she would only be used as a pawn against them. But Jack wasn't a Cylon, and she was leaving him to die.

" We're all going to die, Laura." Cottle said it easily. " It's a fact of life. It doesn't have to be today, not for you, or Isis, or even me, but if you don't take a chance on this, it's virtually guaranteed." Softly he added, " If he wasn't lying, you could help back in here in a few hours. Give Isis the last of the alcohol…. She'll sleep the whole time you're gone. Leave her close to me, within reach. And leave me a gun."

" Jack, you're having a heart attack. You can't take care of a baby, even a sleeping baby." Roslin said it quickly, before he could say more. At the same time, she could see the color returning to his face. Sitting down and resting was helping him. If the baby was asleep… and there really were people not far away… she could bring back help. It was a risk, but one worth taking. " All right, I'll go, but I'm going to go as far as I can in two hours and then if I don't find anyone I'll come straight back here."

If she wasn't dead by then.

0o0o0o0

It hurt like hell. The pain had eased off, and for that he was grateful, but he wasn't going to run a marathon any time soon. Cottle felt weak and tired, but he didn't let himself go to sleep. It had been hard enough convincing Laura to go. Everyone had their time, their time to live and their time to die and he knew better than to think he knew when that time came for anyone. He had seen patients who were barely sick just give up and die, despite a good prognosis. He had also seen people come back from the very edge of life and death when they had every reason to die. He didn't want to die, he had every intention of not dying, and he wanted to live. But he also was no fool. It was possible that he was living his last hours. If so, there were worse ways to go, sitting under a tree enjoying the rare afternoon sun of New Caprica.

But he preferred to live, truth be told. The story, as his father had often said, was just getting started and he didn't want to miss anything, not even at his advanced age. Plus, even though he had spent close to two years instructing people like Seelix and Ishay in the medical arts, the reality was that they were badly trained interns at best. Not that he dismissed their abilities, he just was man enough to admit that he wasn't much of a teacher. The people would have no doctor, without him if he died, and he had to hold on for that reason alone. But it was hard when he could feel his heart thumping in his chest like he was running a race.

The baby was quiet, which was to be expected. He had watched Laura feed Isis a bottle of formula that had been liberally laced with bourbon. The kid might be half Cylon but she reacted to liquor the same way a human infant would. Laura had been gone for an hour and half or so and he didn't expect her back for a while. If at all. There was always a chance that she would be killed. That was certainly a possibility but not one he relished. He certainly couldn't move but he kept his ears trained to the sounds around him, praying he wouldn't hear a gunshot.

He didn't. What he did hear, after a long while, were rushed bootsteps in the woods. He opened his eyes, and wasn't surprised to find Felix Gaeta standing over him. "What took you so long?" he asked softly.

" Are you kidding me? This whole area is crawling with Cylons!" Gaeta was dirty and sweating, and looked rundown. Odd really, now that Cottle considered it. Gaeta looked like he had been running for days. Of course, he had, but he hadn't looked it.

" Son, you **are** a Cylon. Not to be an asshole about it, but you're part of the problem." He was having a heart attack and yet he couldn't resist. Then again, he was probably going to be dead in hours if what Gaeta said was true.

" Where's the president? Six has got packs of Centurions hunting for her. Why did she leave you? Are you sick? Is it your heart?" Gaeta knelt down to his side. " Where did President Roslin go?"

There was something odd about how insistent the younger man was being, but it was hard to get terribly concerned when his own heart was doing skips. " I sent her ahead… to get help…."

"Because you're sick," Gaeta finished. That troubling cold look flashed across Gaeta's face and Cottle felt a rush of real fear. Gaeta glanced at the sleeping baby and then back at Cottle, clearly making a decision. He quickly dumped his rucksack to the ground. " I'm taking the baby. I'll be back. I don't have time to explain, so just trust me on this. I think I know how to get us out of this."

" By what? Turning back time?" Cottle asked weakly. He wanted to protest more, but the look in Gaeta's face stopped him. He had a feeling that Gaeta wouldn't hesitate to lay hands on him, not at all, and that… was worrisome.

Gaeta carefully took on the baby carrier, making sure that Isis was still asleep. " I don't have time to explain. I need her as a bargaining chip."

The problem was that Cottle could see that going the other way, that Gaeta needed a bargaining chip to ensure that he was accepted into Cylon society. "Why don't you give it a try?"

Gaeta smiled coldly. " I'm going to do a really human thing. Let's hope I've picked up more than just looking the part." And with that, he turned and began to run.


	16. The Cage

Laura pressed her hand against her side and wheezed in a deep breath. The afternoon sun was warm, and she was tired. She was exhausted. She had been exhausted for days, the only thing keeping her moving was the unrelenting terror of being caught. She hadn't complained. It wasn't as though it would have done any good. But she was tired, and scared, and scared of just how stupid she was being.

Jack was probably already dead. That might have even been his plan, to get her to run to where he thought there was safety. She took another deep, shuddering breath. She hadn't seen anyone, not even a Cylon. The chances were slim to none that Gaeta... the Cylon had been telling the truth. That left her alone in the woods.

The sun was about an hour from setting. I could backtrack, she thought worriedly, but I won't get back until after nightfall. She didn't like it, but there was nothing else that could be done. A few more deep breathes and she was ready to turn around.

Except that when she did, she caught a flash of white leather and blonde hair rushing at her. Then her legs were kicked out from under her and she was face down on the ground. A kick to her ribs took her breath away and then she was pulled to her feet and spun around.

Six smiled at her, twisting her hand into the fabric of Laura's shift, lifting her up until she was on her toes. " What have we here? Don't you know that humans are to be within the settlement at all times? What shall we do with such a little troublemaker?" The last was said with a certain amount of grinding anger.

"I'll never do what you want," Laura hissed. The Cylon merely smiled as it revealed a gun in it's other hand.

" We have ways of making you do as you're told," it said softly. " You'll either participate willingly… or we'll make you into a puppet. But don't worry. If it comes to that, you certainly won't keep any awareness of it." The gun was held in front of her face, uncomfortably close. " If you ask nicely, I might even send a centurion to fetch your fallen doctor companion. He might still be alive, you know."

Laura twisted in its grip to no avail. " You bitch!"

" Such language. That's not very presidential. We'll need to clean your mouth up a bit before we let you give any more speeches." The Cylon savagely swung her around and began forcing her to move forward. " We'll just walk back to my transport and get you back to where you can do some good for your people."

"Wait!"

Before Laura could react to the voice, the Cylon pulled her back, holding her tightly and placing the barrel of the gun it held to her head. Not that it mattered, she was too shocked at the sudden appearance of Felix Gaeta. He stepped into the wooded clearing, holding Isis awkwardly with one arm, and a gun in his other hand. A gun that he held to the sleeping baby's head. " I think we should talk, Number Six."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Cylon smirk, obviously amused. " Number Two, I had wondered how long it would take you to see reason. You can be very stubborn when you're ignoring logic. And you brought the baby. But then, you're a Two, and Twos are very clever. Clever, honest, and… loyal."

After a long moment, Gaeta nodded. " Clever, honest, and loyal…" His hand tightened around the gun. "But you're not a Two, and I'll need some assurances before I agree to come with you."

"You bastard!" Roslin couldn't help it. Six throttled her silent, gripping her with insanely strong arms. "You bitch!" she snarled at Six. Six clamped down on her throat. With her arm, pressing hard against her voice box.

"I'm listening," Six said.

Gaeta gestured to the baby. " You have Roslin. You need her, I know that. But… she made a point of bringing this baby with her. Dr. Cottle told me that the baby was special, but he wouldn't tell me why. I could guess though, and I think you can too. In fact I think you might find the baby more important than anything else." He paused. " And I have the baby. I could just kill her if she's not important." His fingers tightened.

Six was silent for a long moment. " The baby may be important," she conceded. She used her arm to keep pressure on Roslin's throat, making sure that Roslin couldn't say a word. Roslin struggled but it was like trying to get out of steel handcuffs. Six's grip tightened. " What do you want, Two?"

" Assurances," Gaeta said easily. " Assurance that I won't be in trouble. There'll be some trouble. I'm not a fool. You'll be in trouble for activating me when you weren't supposed to. I'll be in trouble for running with the humans. The question is how to do we mitigate our trouble? You need Roslin and the baby. Perhaps this was all your plan. You activated me for the purpose of keeping track of the forming resistance, knowing that I was a trusted member of the society. Ms. Roslin was the target with Isis here as an added bonus. Of course, you told me what to do. That way, you're the one who had the brilliant idea. No trouble for you. And of course, I'm the one who did all the hard work. No trouble for me."

Six considered it. She smiled warmly. "That's a good plan. I wasn't looking forward to explaining to your brothers that you had to be sacrificed. You understand that you will need to repeat this to several people. There will be doubt expressed."

Gaeta nodded. " I **have** spent several years among humans. Do you really think I can't fake it fairly well by now? Admit it, I should have been found out long before this."

"It's true," Six said after a long moment. " It was assumed that the first sleeper agent discovered would be you. That's why you were never activated, despite the fact that you were positioned more highly than Eight. Your plan is good."

" What's even better," Gaeta said easily, " Is that you can accomplish this without revealing the Two model."

" That is a plus." Six said after a moment. " But you understand that if the child is what I suspect, that the mission has changed?" She let the gun drop, although she was careful to keep the stranglehold on Roslin.

" Of course," Gaeta said easily. " The mission is what God says the mission is."

"Yes…." Roslin could feel the Cylon relax in her arms. The grip was still strong but Gaeta's words had reassured the Cylon, Roslin could feel the minute relaxation of tension in its grip. She tried to relax as well, as if only to lull it into belief that she was going to comply. Six didn't loosen her grip one bit, but Roslin could feel her relax just a little. The Cylon took a deep breath. " Is that all you want?"

Gaeta shrugged. " We're brother and sister aren't we? I just want to be fair. At the same time I don't want to be boxed. That's what I want assurance on."

" I can assure you, Two, that if you return with me, that you won't be harmed." Six seemed amused. " You'll be welcomed, and I like the impromptu scenario you've come up with. You'll need teaching, of course. You don't understand your true nature. There's so much more than you realize."

Gaeta nodded. Roslin wanted to leap at him and tear out his throat with her nails. He was surprisingly nonchalant as he cuddled the baby with more affection than she had ever seen him use before. That made it all the more shocking when he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. She felt the bullet whiz past her face, and then the sickening splash of blood and matter as the Cylon's head exploded. It fell to the ground, and she almost fell with it, disentangling herself just before it fell to the ground in a bloody heap.

Gaeta set the baby down carefully, and stepped closer, the gun down at his side. " We need to talk. This," and he gestured to the dead Cylon, " only works once."

"This?" Roslin asked numbly.

He nodded. " I lied. I lied a lot. I'm not supposed to be very good at it, and I tricked her." He shivered as he took a step closer to her, and she was surprised to see that he was pale and sweaty and visibly breathing hard. He looked at her, and then he held out the gun to her. " I made my choice, about what side I was on, seven days ago. Now it's your turn."

She took the gun. She had an idea where he was going. " What are you suggesting?"

He shrugged tiredly. " You can shoot me. Or not." He smiled slightly. " I never killed anyone before today. I never lied to someone's face, and then shot them. I don't really know anything about who I am or what's true about my life, but I've picked the human side. Now… you have to make a decision." He stepped back, with his hands up. " The baby carrier is over in the tree line, and Dr. Cottle is where you left him. He didn't look bad. If you decide to kill me, you should keep heading west. I saw pilots there. They might have even heard the shots."

" What happens if you die?" she asked. Her finger tightened around the trigger of the gun. It would feel so good, so good to take the rage she had towards the Cylons out on the Cylon standing before her. They had taken everything from her. " The admiral would put you in the brig. You'd be in a cage for the rest of your life, on a leash and in handcuffs whenever you were allowed out."

He shrugged. " I'm in a cage right now, and I will be, no matter what you do."

Slowly, almost despite herself, she lowered the gun. It was time, she realized, to take a chance. Because she wasn't able to kill the man that had just saved her from a fate worse than death. She wasn't able to pull the trigger that would send him back to his own kind to be downloaded and stored. She was surprised to see just how relieved Gaeta looked.

"Hey!" They both spun around at the sound. Roslin could feel tears welling up in her eyes as Bill Adama strode towards them. He took in the scene instantly. "We're trying to pick up all the stragglers we can find. We found some pilots who had wireless… they heard shots. Then we found Dr. Cottle who told us you were in this area. Are you hurt? " he asked as he began to check her. Gaeta shrank back nervously but it was clear that Bill's attention was on her. On her and on all the blood that was all over her clothes.

And she had a choice to make. A choice to condemn a Cylon to solitary confinement on the Galactica or worse, among the Cylons themselves. Or, as Cottle had argued days earlier, she could take advantage of an opportunity. Felix Gaeta was in a cage no matter what she did, that was true, but if Cottle was right, then he was also a source of information. Information on the enemy.

" I'm all right," she said quickly. She gestured at the dead Cylon. " I was with Lt. Gaeta and Dr. Cottle. We got separated when Jack got sick. This Cylon caught me. Lt. Gaeta saved my life, and the baby's."

Both Adama and Gaeta looked at her with shock and surprise. Finally Adama nodded to Gaeta, " Good job, Lieutenant. Only the gods know what the Cylons would have done to Ms. Roslin. Let's get back to the Raptor. We've been sneaking in and getting as many people as we can but it's risky as hell." He scooped the baby up off the ground with practiced ease. " We're so short staffed for pilots… finding this group and you two and Dr. Cottle is a miracle we needed, but we've got to move."

Bill Adama was in his element, Laura could see that. He was a man who needed a crisis to really be alive, and things were very critical if the Admiral was so short staffed that he was personally flying search and rescue, but she tried not to think about that. Not yet. Instead she dropped back to Gaeta, who was still looking dazed and surprised. "You're not free, Mr. Gaeta. You're on parole."

After a moment, he nodded. " Thank you."

She didn't respond. She wasn't sure how she felt about holding the key to his cage.

0o0o0o0

She hated waking up in a new body. It was always disorientating. Worse was the knowledge that she had been tricked. Tricked by a naïve Two that knew nothing about what he was doing. Six considered how pleasant it would be to catch Felix Gaeta and teach him a lesson about defying the will of God. Of course, it wasn't a priority, and she would need to be careful. Two was not likely to allow her to give Felix the punishment he so richly deserved. Even if he had turned traitor.

" Open your eyes, Number Six." She did. She was in the rebirthing tank, as she had known. The surprise was seeing Two, and Two standing over the tank. Twos had an almost extreme distaste for the tanks. When they awakened, they almost leapt up and out and were off in their beloved showers, scouring themselves.

These Twos were glowering at her, another rarity. They both frowned darkly and then one reached down and pulled her up out of the tank. " You ruined our brother," he snarled.

" You activated him without permission," added the other. " You knew that he would need reinforcement and you left him alone among the humans."

" You frightened him and now we've lost our brother." The first Two twisted her arm. "God agreed to let us punish you."

The second Two nodded. " It's a sin to defile one another. God agreed that our punishment was fair."

"Punishment?" Six shrugged. The Twos weren't known for cruelty. No doubt she would be forced to spend more time in their rather dull company. That was certainly a punishment.

The Twos looked at each other and then smiled darkly at her. " We have lost a brother," said the first.

"Therefore Six will lose a sister," the second Two said. " God is just, after all."


End file.
